Education · Teachers
The teacher programme for student support works inside the role a teacher already has.
A session for teaching staff and school leaders on the support a teacher is genuinely placed to give: noticing what has changed, saying something useful, writing down what was actually seen, and handing a concern to the person your policy names. It is not counsellor training and carries no qualification.
In short
The Teacher Programme for Student Support is a staff session GullyFuture runs inside schools for teachers and school leaders. It covers everyday supportive practice, noticing changes in participation, holding a brief and appropriate check-in, recording objective observations, and using the school's own referral route. It is educational guidance for a teaching role, not counsellor training.
Why this matters
The first adult to notice is usually a teacher
Schools already have a policy, and many have a counsellor. What sits unaddressed between the two is what an ordinary teacher does on an ordinary Wednesday, in the four minutes available.
Nobody else in the building has the same view
A class teacher sees the same thirty students five days a week across a year. A change in a student's work, attendance or company appears in that view long before it reaches anyone holding a designated role.
Noticing and explaining are separate tasks
A teacher can see that a student has stopped submitting work without being able to say why, and the why is not the teacher's to establish. The session keeps the two apart, because joining them is where most of the trouble starts.
The boundary is rarely stated out loud
Most staff have never been told how much to ask, what to write down, or what must leave the classroom immediately. Without an answer, some teachers ask far too much and others say nothing at all.
A referral route on paper is not a route staff can use
Many schools have a written process that few teachers could describe from memory. Part of the session is reading your own process aloud and locating the person it actually runs through.
Carrying a concern alone costs the teacher something
Staff who hear something difficult often keep it, out of loyalty to the student. Handing it on correctly is both the safer route for the student and the lighter one for the teacher.
Programmes
The four parts of the programme, in detail
Each runs on its own, or in sequence across a term of staff meetings. Schools usually begin with whichever one their staff ask about most.
Programmes
What sits either side of the staffroom
A teacher's work on this is one part of a wider arrangement. These pages cover the others.
What we cover
What a staff session works through
Each part is practised rather than described. The four pages listed below take one part each and go considerably further into it.
Where the role begins and where it stops
The support a teacher is well placed to give, and the point at which continuing would mean acting as an assessor or a counsellor. Stated plainly, with examples from both sides of that line.
Ordinary practice that supports without singling anyone out
Predictable routines, how instructions and deadlines are given, how groups are formed, and what a class does about a student returning after a long absence.
Reading participation rather than personality
What a change in work, attendance, company or attention might indicate, and why a phrase like 'she has always been quiet' describes a year rather than this fortnight.
A short check-in that is not an interrogation
Where to hold it, how to open it, how long it should run, and what to say about what you will pass on. Student listening and early identification covers this in full.
Feedback, correction and what a mistake is allowed to cost
How marks, a remark made in front of a class and repeated correction land on a student who is already struggling, and what a teacher can change about the delivery without lowering the standard.
Writing an observation somebody else can use
Facts, dates and what was seen — minimal, factual, and kept in the school's own records under its data practice rather than in a personal notebook.
The handover, including the conversation with a parent
Who the concern goes to, what they need from you, how an observation is worded to a family without a conclusion attached, and who in the school holds that conversation.
The teacher's own limits
Workload, the concerns a teacher is entitled to set down at the end of a day, and why staff wellbeing belongs in a session about supporting students rather than in a separate one.
In the session
How the time is actually spent
Staff sessions fail when they are delivered at teachers. Most of this one is exercises done at tables of four or five.
- A short input on the role boundary, with two worked examples on each side of it.
- A sorting exercise: written statements separated into what was observed and what was concluded.
- Scenario cards drawn from ordinary school situations, discussed in table groups and reported back briefly.
- Pairs practise opening a two-minute check-in, including the sentence about what will be passed on.
- Your own referral route drawn on the board, from the classroom to the named person, with the gaps marked where staff cannot fill them in.
- A note-writing exercise: the same incident recorded twice, once loosely and once in factual terms.
- Anonymous written questions from staff, answered generally at the close.
- Each teacher writes one practice to try, and the coordinator keeps the list for a later staff meeting.
By age
The same support looks different across the school
Teachers of every stage usually sit in one staff session, so the examples are separated by stage rather than averaged into something that fits none of them.
Teachers of Classes 5 to 7
Changes are visible and often loud — a student left out at break, materials not brought, a sudden refusal to read aloud. Support here is mostly routine, seating, pace and a quiet word in a busy room.
Teachers of Classes 8 to 10
Students manage how they appear, so changes are quieter: work submitted but thinner, a different group at lunch, attention gone from one subject only. Staff are asked to compare a student against their own earlier pattern, not against the class.
Teachers of Classes 11 to 12
Near-adults carrying decisions and load. 'What is your plan for this week' usually opens more than 'is everything alright', and the referral conversation is held with the student rather than about them.
What students leave with
Modest, and all of it observable
What a session can reasonably produce. None of it is a change in any student's results or behaviour, and we do not offer that.
- Staff can describe a concern in observable terms, without a cause attached to it.
- Each teacher writes at least one practice to try in their own classroom in the following weeks.
- The group can name the person a concern goes to, and the threshold at which it must go the same day.
- Staff can say which parts of a student's situation are theirs to carry and which are not.
- The school receives attendance, the topics covered, and the questions staff raised, in aggregate.
Formats
Ways this can run at your institution
Pick what fits the group, the hall and the time you can give it. Most schools start with one session and decide afterwards.
Awareness session
A concise introduction for a larger group — an assembly or a year group — closing with moderated questions.
Interactive workshop
Classroom-sized. Scenarios, discussion, reflection, and an action worksheet the student keeps.
Short programme series
Two or more connected sessions, with something to practise in between and a closing reflection.
Teacher orientation
For staff: facilitation, what to watch for, how to follow up, and where the referral boundary sits.
What the school provides
A staff session needs less than a student session, but it needs the parts below to be arranged before we arrive rather than on the day.
Start a conversation- A slot staff can genuinely attend — an in-service day, a reserved staff meeting, or a period where cover is possible.
- A room where thirty or forty adults can sit in table groups rather than in rows.
- Your child-protection and referral policy sent in advance, so the session teaches your process rather than a general one.
- The name of the staff member concerns go to, and a deputy, confirmed before the session.
- A coordinator to plan with, and to hold the list of practices staff agree at the end.
- A note on what leadership would most like addressed, usually one or two situations that keep recurring.
- Projection if you would like the referral map on a screen; a whiteboard does the job equally well.
Safeguarding
How sessions with students are kept safe
This is a session about the teaching role, held with adults. The conditions below keep it from turning into a case discussion about a student who is not in the room.
- Programmes are arranged through the institution and run in approved group settings, supervised throughout by a school-designated adult.
- No unsupervised one-to-one mentoring of a student, and no private messaging or personal contact between a contributor and a student.
- Contributors are screened and briefed for the role they are given, and may not use a session to sell or promote anything.
- We collect only the information a programme needs, and seek institutional and parent or guardian consent where it is required.
- A student's photograph, quote or story is used only with specific permission obtained beforehand.
- Anything touching safety, abuse, severe distress or self-harm follows the institution's own escalation and professional-referral process.
- We do not train teachers to assess, diagnose or counsel. Nothing in the session gives a member of staff a clinical role, and it is said plainly in the room.
- Staff are asked not to describe an identifiable student. Scenarios are supplied by us, and real situations are discussed only in general terms.
- If a live concern surfaces during the session, the facilitator stops and routes it to your designated staff member rather than working through it with the group.
- Your child-protection policy is the authority. Where our material and your policy differ, your policy stands, and we align the session to it beforehand.
- We keep no record of any student, and nothing from your school's examples leaves the room with us.
- The session creates no new reporting channel. Every concern continues to travel through the route your school already has.
Privacy, consent and child-data wording on this site is being reviewed against current Indian law before any student information is collected. See our privacy notice for what we hold and why.
Questions
Questions schools ask us
Is this counsellor training?
No. It is a role-appropriate orientation for teaching staff and carries no qualification. Counselling is a professional practice with its own training, supervision and ethical framework, and a session of a few hours cannot stand in for it. What we cover is the support a teacher is already placed to give, and the point at which a concern moves to your counsellor or a qualified external service.
Are teachers expected to work out what is wrong with a student?
No. Teachers are asked to notice and describe changes, not to establish causes or attach labels. A drop in submitted work has many possible explanations, and separating them is the work of people qualified to do it. The programme is built around observation, plain description and handover, and it states clearly that diagnosis sits outside the teaching role.
How is a disclosure from a student handled?
Through your school's own safeguarding process, the same day. A teacher acknowledges what a student has said, does not promise to keep it secret, does not question the student further, and passes it to the staff member your policy names. The session practises the wording for that, including how to tell a student beforehand what will have to be passed on.
Can the session follow our school's existing policy?
Yes, and it works better that way. We ask for your child-protection and referral documents in advance and build the session around the route they describe, including the roles and timelines in them. Where your policy differs from our general material, your policy is what staff are taught. No school is asked to adopt a separate process for our programme.
Can it be run for the whole staff at once?
Yes. A whole-staff briefing of about an hour works as an introduction, and a classroom-sized workshop of twenty to thirty staff allows the practice exercises to run properly. Many schools do both: one short session for everyone, then smaller workshops by class stage. Support staff can be included where the school considers it appropriate.
Related programmes
What schools usually look at next
About GullyFuture
GullyFuture is an initiative of Gully Future Foundation, Bengaluru. We design practical, age-appropriate group programmes and bring suitable educators, professionals and mentors to institutions that invite us. The institution provides the student group, the venue, supervision and the local context; we shape the programme and find the right people to run it.
We are not a tuition centre, a counselling or therapy service, a diagnostic service, a course marketplace, or a motivational-speaking business. We provide educational guidance and programme facilitation — not tuition, therapy, diagnosis, crisis care or guaranteed career counselling.
More about Gully Future FoundationPage review
Last reviewed . Guidance pages are re-read as programmes run and as rules change.
Bring this initiative to your institution
Tell us roughly how many staff, how long you can give the session, and the two situations your teachers ask about most. We will suggest a format and the people who could run it.