Demonstrate Understanding of the Teaching/Training Role, Its Responsibilities and Boundaries, the Importance of Maintaining Professional Relationships.

Demonstrate understanding of the teaching/training role, its responsibilities and boundaries, the importance of maintaining professional relationships.

Before starting this journey towards a new career it is important to question what you want to achieve. Why do you want to teach? What do you want to teach? And who do you want to teach?

The teacher’s role, responsibilities and limitations is no longer limited to children established in the British Primary and Secondary schools. In these days the population keep up to date with their education until later in the life circle for different reasons. Some people update their education/training due to the fact that they try to gain employment, or if they have already gained that, to remain in employment.
The teacher’s role now is to keep up with what the society demand for teaching in the lifelong learning sector. But it is not just demands that sometimes worry people working in the teaching profession, there are limitations as well. Let us try to illustrate this with an example:
You have a student who is weak in English, you should arrange for the student to receive extra English lessons with a specialist in teaching English. The teacher should also be able to encourage their students to achieve the best possible result, which the example above also illustrates. We sometimes feel helpless towards changes in the surrounding, it could be things like what happens when a course ends and you as a professional have done all you can to prepare your students for life outside college, knowing that it will be difficult for them to get a job no matter how well they have been taught.

The relationships between teachers and other professionals in the lifelong learning sector is sometimes complex because in the same time the teacher is your inspiration, your confidence, your mentor and the one who criticises your work, you sometimes will have deal with other professionals. It could perhaps be a person who arranges contacts with businesses outside the place of education and people who arrange extra help for students who needs that help to complete their course work. The cooperation between the student adviser and the teacher is important as well because if the teacher finds that despite the best possible effort from the student, it would not be possible to achieve a good result he / she should first of all talk to the student, and secondly talk to the student adviser about a course that would be more suitable for the student. A good example of that is from Tummons, Becoming a Professional Tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector a teacher is giving feedback to a student and the student receives it in a negative way. The way the teacher handles the situation does not impress me because he seems unable to deal with the situation in a professional manner, and sooner or later he has to face up to his responsibility to the student and other professional bodies. He says “I am a teacher and not a social worker “, but he does not contact a professional body who might be able to help and he does not tell the student what he really thinks.
As a teacher you should always maintain a professional relationship with both your students and other professional bodies involved in the educational sector. Try never to get personally involved because it can be seen as unprofessional behaviour by the outside world.

According to Wallace, “Teaching, Tutoring and Training in the Lifelong Learning Sector”, there are different ways of thinking about your own professional development as a teacher, like Gregorc describes four stages of professional development. Theses are ‘Becoming’, ‘Growing’, ‘Maturing’ and ‘Fully Functioning’. I believe we have to go through this process, not just as teachers, but also as individuals.

A teacher has a duty to keep records like register the attendance of the class and which subjects they have taught, this is for proof that the correct subjects has been taught to the relevant students. It is also need to maintain these records to justify the grade you reward the students in the end of course, and to be able to prove that the students have completed the material to complete the course.
In a teaching situation where we teach German there is various issues to consider. One, It is always good to start in English and making sure that the material you provide the students with is in both English and German. This helps to give the students a better understanding of the German language and to be able to see the words in German.

Promoting and maintaining a safe and secure learning environment is one of the most important issues in the learning sector. A safe learning environment can promote a better result for students and teachers. This is based on the Health and safety act which goes back to 1974, regulated in 1999. The teacher’s responsibilities are to read and understand evacuation procedures; ensure learners are informed of evacuation and housekeeping practices; read and understand risk assessments; students with special needs may need and have been implemented e.g. trailing cables, clear gangways, rubbish moved etc; any Health & Safety issues you feel are a risk report to your line manager or Health & S officer. An example which could be taking into account learners with special needs like communication with deaf people i.e. who will not hear the alarms and do further measures need implementing such as flashing lights or some sort of personal vibrating device. Another example of Health & Safety could be a student who is reluctant to learn. In this case it is important for the teacher to find the reason for why that is the case, and try to come up with a solution for the student so he/she feels safe and secure where she is being taught.

Every school and other educational institutions have a duty to promote high standards and fulfilments for each student. The Equality Act 2010 is an Act to make provision to require Ministers of the Crown and other when making strategic decisions about the exercise of their functions to have regard to the desirability of reducing socio-economic inequalities; to reform and harmonise equality law and restate greater part of the enactment relating to discriminating and harassment related to certain personal characteristic; to enable certain places of education/employers to be required to public information about the differences in working conditions between male and female employees; to make sure that there are equal opportunities; to amend to the law relating to rights and responsibilities.

It is important for the individual to understand the role he undertakes before considering to become a teacher. You have to ask yourself a lot of questions like; will I be able to fulfil my role towards the students and other professional bodies in the learning sector? Will I be able to change my role the same way the society is changing? Only you have the answers…..

Words: 1151.

Reference list:

The Equality Act 2010, part 6, education, chapter 2, further and higher education. WWW.legislation.data.gov.ukpga/2010/15/part 6/ chapter 2/data.htm.

The Health and Safety Act 1974, Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999.

Tummons, Jonathan, “Becoming a Professional Tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector, Second edition 2010, published by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow.

Wallace, Susan, “Teaching, Tutoring and Training in the Lifelong Learning Sector, third edition 2007, published by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow.