Roles And Responsibilities In The Lifelong Learning Sector
My role and the responsibilities I have as a teacher within the lifelong learning sector are quite complex. Not only do I need to ensure the learners gain their qualification (or reach the required standard if there is no formal qualification as in my case), I need to help them achieve this in a way which addresses their own individual learning needs. I also need to consider the interests of the employer, and should I be teaching in a different setting such as that of a college working with young people, I would also need to consider the interests of the learners’ parents along with the learning institution. There are many reasons that learners may be entering the learning environment since the lifelong learning sector is so broad, encompassing
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further education , higher education, training for employment, adult learning, the armed forces or prisons and in my case, work-based training. Which means not only are the learners funded from a variety of sources, such as government bodies, parents, their own finances or by their employer, but also that the learners will have a variety of reasons for choosing to learn, not only to gain qualifications, but to gain skills suitable for the working environment, skills for life, or skills that may help them cope as the world advances for example in Information Technology.
Essentially, the lifelong learning sector covers learners from aged 14 and upwards and covers everything that is not compulsory education.
As a teacher, there is more involved than just standing in front of a class, especially considering the need to respect individual learning needs. It is necessary to identify and meet the needs of learners by assessment and then devising differentiated learning outcomes, dependent on the level they have attained. This may involve implementing additional support or creating Individual Learning Plan’s to help the students achieve set goals. Obviously where a group has varying needs, it is necessary to consider this when creating a lesson plan and addressing the individual needs, considering individual learning styles and ensuring various activities are planned which stimulate the students appropriately. There may be a need for additional support, in which case it would be necessary for the teacher to liaise with the relevant professionals to ensure they are aware of the support that is needed.
It is necessary for a teacher to promote appropriate behaviour and respect within the classroom to enhance the learning environment and ensuring everyone is treated fairly and equally. This can be done by negotiating (within reason, obviously health and safety issues are non negotiable) ground rules with the learners early on. They are aware of acceptable behaviour and giving them the responsibility of this task means they take ‘ownership’ of the ground rules. After negotiating them, it is necessary to agree or reject the rules so everyone is clear on what is expected. It is imperative that teachers adhere to these ground rules also so that they are always portraying good role models to the students and also highlighting and quashing disrespectful or inappropriate behaviour will help to manage the problem.
As a teacher you have a duty of care for your learners; ensuring they have a safe learning environment. This would include ensuring any student has access to first aid, but also that they are given help to gain any resources they may need to aid them. This could include access to a room to enable them to carry out self study or being sat in a specific location within the class room to aid a visual impairment. Along with this, obviously the designing and planning programmes of study must be carried out; including planning and preparing a classroom, ensuring you have developed interesting ways to deliver the material which considers all the learners’ needs, and evaluating the effectiveness of the programme, there is also the need to keep records, records of learners attendance and punctuality (registers), and records of progression, achievements and completion (learner needs analyses, individual learning plans, assessments).
Records may be kept electronically or in paper format, but the reasons for maintaining these records include information gathering, auditing, quality assurance systems and health and safety management.
There are times when it would be necessary to refer a learner on for specialist help or advice, where needs may fall outside of a teachers’ capabilities or boundaries. This could be a situation where health advice is needed or counselling, which can be common with various changes that occur for young people within the age we could likely be teaching, especially when considering the sorts of activities they could become involved with at this stage in their lives; sexual activity may increase, drugs/alcohol may be used and hormonal/body changes can cause uncertainty and anxiety for individuals . The sorts of places to refer on to could include student services within an organisation, counselling, financial support, learner support for physical and/or educational support needs, including things like dyslexia/dyscalculia. There are also national support services which a learner may need to be signposted towards, for example professionals such as Samaritans, Citizens Advice Bureau, NHS Direct, to name but a few. At all these times, it is important to respect an individuals wishes and confidentiality, though there are certain cases such as concerns about abuse where as a duty of care, it would be necessary to refer your concerns on to someone more senior.
In addition to these boundaries, there are also boundaries that exit between teachers and other professionals they may be working with.
Individual aims should be highlighted to make sure there is no conflict between the aims of the teacher and those of any other professional working with the individual ensuring the learner remains as supported as possible. Likewise, it is necessary to consider ways in which we can best help those we work along side. This can involve things such as attending meetings to that we are aware of any issues that affect everyone or ways that we may be able to help others. Working alongside others to share any material or resources that can be useful to others, even simple things like keeping a class tidy and leaving it as found so that it is a suitable environment for the next class to use and also consider that by not tidying it, it could be left unsafe for the next teacher to use.
All of these things must be achieved whilst acting within professional codes.
There are a number of specific legislations that must be complied with. The main acts and rules are;
Health and Safety at Work Act (1974)
This considers that everyone has a responsibility for the safety of themselves and others. Rules should be followed and safe practices adhered to, for example if a practice has been made safe by implementing a safety measure, highlighting a wet floor with a sign per se, then this needs to be fulfilled.
The Management of Health and …show more content…
Safety at Work Regulations (1999)
This prevents unsafe practices and minimises risk. We have fire evacuation procedures in place, first aid at work, safe manual handling training and practices, risk assessments.
Risk Assessments
This practice considers the risk involved in an activity by considering the hazards and applying measures that will reduce the risk of that hazard causing harm or the amount of harm that it can cause. These assessments must be recorded by teachers to prove activities have been assessed.
Child Protection Guidelines
The protection of children has always existed during the 20th century and the Children Act 1989 is seen as the first significant law which is the structure and principals we follow where the needs of child is put first and originally professionals attempted to keep children with their parents rather than in care.
Changes were made following cases such as Victoria Climbie and following the Children’s Act (2004), there are things like an integrated computer system. These acts protect children and vulnerable adults against inappropriate behaviour. Mandatory Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are required for those working with children and vulnerable adults. Following the Soham murders in 2002 a report highlighted the need for a single agency to vet all individuals who want to work with these groups of
people.
Disability Discrimination Act (1995 and onwards)
Disabled people have the right to employment, education and other services and reasonable steps be taken to modify physical features that may cause barriers both in businesses and in educational establishments.
Copyright Guidelines – Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1998, amended 2003)
These protect the writers of material (including books, newspapers, journals, downloaded material from the internet, in fact anything which is not your own original) from plagiarism and compromising ownership.
Reproducing material must acknowledge the originator. For research sources must be cited by something like the Harvard referencing system and Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) offers licences so that photocopying can be done by educational establishments by paying royalties.
Data Protection Act (1998)
This requires any organisation that needs to hold data on individuals for more than two months to register as data users. Sharing of data is restricted and care should be taken when holding any records including those of learners, staff or other agencies.
Duty of Care
Teachers are considered as ‘in loco parentis’ to their younger learners and are therefore required to offer a safe environment. Proven negligence may result in compensation to the injured party, however if an organisation and individual have taken reasonable steps to ensure safety but a learner has not followed the rules it is unlikely to be proven that a duty of care has been breached.
Equal Opportunities Legislation
This involves a series of laws that ensure no one is discriminated against, irrespective of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion/belief, domestic circumstances, social or employment status.
Direct or indirect discrimination, harassment or victimisation is deemed as unlawful, as is failing to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person, as described in the Disability Discrimination Act. Similarly, a workplace must provide goods, facilities and services fairly.
Whilst the legislation and guidelines are linked to equalities, diversity moves further and ensures you recognise the differences between individuals and promote participation of everyone, or ‘inclusion’.
As a teacher, this means ensuring that all materials, (handouts/presentations/learning materials) and language are unbiased, inappropriate comments are challenged and groups of learners should be disadvantaged in any way. Care should be taken to ensure support and facilities enable access by all learners and all learners’ needs. This involves using words such as ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’, something which is crucial in the fire service at the moment, likewise not using words like ‘fireman’. Any pictures used should also represent a diverse example.
Whilst inclusion is about supporting the needs of learners, there may be times when this is not possible for a teacher without them gaining some support themselves. There is a time to know the limits of your own responsibility and where to ask for help for yourself and for the learner. A line manager would be the most sensible person for an initial contact for referral. They may be able to point a teacher towards support that is available throughout the organisation, for example the fire brigade has a learning support department who could help both an instructor adapt material for specific learning needs, but can also help an individual with different learning strategies for a more long term solution for that individual. Or there may be organisations that are able to provide specialist resources for supporting disabled learners. It could be a case of going to a voluntary or charitable organisation or their website for advice about more appropriate teaching strategies or for access to resources. These points of referral will differ depending on the type of organisation the teacher/instructor is teaching within.
References
Tummons, J, 2007. Becoming a Professional Tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector.
further education , higher education, training for employment, adult learning, the armed forces or prisons and in my case, work-based training. Which means not only are the learners funded from a variety of sources, such as government bodies, parents, their own finances or by their employer, but also that the learners will have a variety of reasons for choosing to learn, not only to gain qualifications, but to gain skills suitable for the working environment, skills for life, or skills that may help them cope as the world advances for example in Information Technology.
Essentially, the lifelong learning sector covers learners from aged 14 and upwards and covers everything that is not compulsory education.
As a teacher, there is more involved than just standing in front of a class, especially considering the need to respect individual learning needs. It is necessary to identify and meet the needs of learners by assessment and then devising differentiated learning outcomes, dependent on the level they have attained. This may involve implementing additional support or creating Individual Learning Plan’s to help the students achieve set goals. Obviously where a group has varying needs, it is necessary to consider this when creating a lesson plan and addressing the individual needs, considering individual learning styles and ensuring various activities are planned which stimulate the students appropriately. There may be a need for additional support, in which case it would be necessary for the teacher to liaise with the relevant professionals to ensure they are aware of the support that is needed.
It is necessary for a teacher to promote appropriate behaviour and respect within the classroom to enhance the learning environment and ensuring everyone is treated fairly and equally. This can be done by negotiating (within reason, obviously health and safety issues are non negotiable) ground rules with the learners early on. They are aware of acceptable behaviour and giving them the responsibility of this task means they take ‘ownership’ of the ground rules. After negotiating them, it is necessary to agree or reject the rules so everyone is clear on what is expected. It is imperative that teachers adhere to these ground rules also so that they are always portraying good role models to the students and also highlighting and quashing disrespectful or inappropriate behaviour will help to manage the problem.
As a teacher you have a duty of care for your learners; ensuring they have a safe learning environment. This would include ensuring any student has access to first aid, but also that they are given help to gain any resources they may need to aid them. This could include access to a room to enable them to carry out self study or being sat in a specific location within the class room to aid a visual impairment. Along with this, obviously the designing and planning programmes of study must be carried out; including planning and preparing a classroom, ensuring you have developed interesting ways to deliver the material which considers all the learners’ needs, and evaluating the effectiveness of the programme, there is also the need to keep records, records of learners attendance and punctuality (registers), and records of progression, achievements and completion (learner needs analyses, individual learning plans, assessments).
Records may be kept electronically or in paper format, but the reasons for maintaining these records include information gathering, auditing, quality assurance systems and health and safety management.
There are times when it would be necessary to refer a learner on for specialist help or advice, where needs may fall outside of a teachers’ capabilities or boundaries. This could be a situation where health advice is needed or counselling, which can be common with various changes that occur for young people within the age we could likely be teaching, especially when considering the sorts of activities they could become involved with at this stage in their lives; sexual activity may increase, drugs/alcohol may be used and hormonal/body changes can cause uncertainty and anxiety for individuals . The sorts of places to refer on to could include student services within an organisation, counselling, financial support, learner support for physical and/or educational support needs, including things like dyslexia/dyscalculia. There are also national support services which a learner may need to be signposted towards, for example professionals such as Samaritans, Citizens Advice Bureau, NHS Direct, to name but a few. At all these times, it is important to respect an individuals wishes and confidentiality, though there are certain cases such as concerns about abuse where as a duty of care, it would be necessary to refer your concerns on to someone more senior.
In addition to these boundaries, there are also boundaries that exit between teachers and other professionals they may be working with.
Individual aims should be highlighted to make sure there is no conflict between the aims of the teacher and those of any other professional working with the individual ensuring the learner remains as supported as possible. Likewise, it is necessary to consider ways in which we can best help those we work along side. This can involve things such as attending meetings to that we are aware of any issues that affect everyone or ways that we may be able to help others. Working alongside others to share any material or resources that can be useful to others, even simple things like keeping a class tidy and leaving it as found so that it is a suitable environment for the next class to use and also consider that by not tidying it, it could be left unsafe for the next teacher to use.
All of these things must be achieved whilst acting within professional codes.
There are a number of specific legislations that must be complied with. The main acts and rules are;
Health and Safety at Work Act (1974)
This considers that everyone has a responsibility for the safety of themselves and others. Rules should be followed and safe practices adhered to, for example if a practice has been made safe by implementing a safety measure, highlighting a wet floor with a sign per se, then this needs to be fulfilled.
The Management of Health and …show more content…
Safety at Work Regulations (1999)
This prevents unsafe practices and minimises risk. We have fire evacuation procedures in place, first aid at work, safe manual handling training and practices, risk assessments.
Risk Assessments
This practice considers the risk involved in an activity by considering the hazards and applying measures that will reduce the risk of that hazard causing harm or the amount of harm that it can cause. These assessments must be recorded by teachers to prove activities have been assessed.
Child Protection Guidelines
The protection of children has always existed during the 20th century and the Children Act 1989 is seen as the first significant law which is the structure and principals we follow where the needs of child is put first and originally professionals attempted to keep children with their parents rather than in care.
Changes were made following cases such as Victoria Climbie and following the Children’s Act (2004), there are things like an integrated computer system. These acts protect children and vulnerable adults against inappropriate behaviour. Mandatory Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) checks are required for those working with children and vulnerable adults. Following the Soham murders in 2002 a report highlighted the need for a single agency to vet all individuals who want to work with these groups of
people.
Disability Discrimination Act (1995 and onwards)
Disabled people have the right to employment, education and other services and reasonable steps be taken to modify physical features that may cause barriers both in businesses and in educational establishments.
Copyright Guidelines – Copyright, Designs and Patent Act (1998, amended 2003)
These protect the writers of material (including books, newspapers, journals, downloaded material from the internet, in fact anything which is not your own original) from plagiarism and compromising ownership.
Reproducing material must acknowledge the originator. For research sources must be cited by something like the Harvard referencing system and Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) offers licences so that photocopying can be done by educational establishments by paying royalties.
Data Protection Act (1998)
This requires any organisation that needs to hold data on individuals for more than two months to register as data users. Sharing of data is restricted and care should be taken when holding any records including those of learners, staff or other agencies.
Duty of Care
Teachers are considered as ‘in loco parentis’ to their younger learners and are therefore required to offer a safe environment. Proven negligence may result in compensation to the injured party, however if an organisation and individual have taken reasonable steps to ensure safety but a learner has not followed the rules it is unlikely to be proven that a duty of care has been breached.
Equal Opportunities Legislation
This involves a series of laws that ensure no one is discriminated against, irrespective of gender, marital status, sexual orientation, disability, race, nationality, ethnic origin, age, religion/belief, domestic circumstances, social or employment status.
Direct or indirect discrimination, harassment or victimisation is deemed as unlawful, as is failing to make reasonable adjustments for a disabled person, as described in the Disability Discrimination Act. Similarly, a workplace must provide goods, facilities and services fairly.
Whilst the legislation and guidelines are linked to equalities, diversity moves further and ensures you recognise the differences between individuals and promote participation of everyone, or ‘inclusion’.
As a teacher, this means ensuring that all materials, (handouts/presentations/learning materials) and language are unbiased, inappropriate comments are challenged and groups of learners should be disadvantaged in any way. Care should be taken to ensure support and facilities enable access by all learners and all learners’ needs. This involves using words such as ‘they’ instead of ‘he’ or ‘she’, something which is crucial in the fire service at the moment, likewise not using words like ‘fireman’. Any pictures used should also represent a diverse example.
Whilst inclusion is about supporting the needs of learners, there may be times when this is not possible for a teacher without them gaining some support themselves. There is a time to know the limits of your own responsibility and where to ask for help for yourself and for the learner. A line manager would be the most sensible person for an initial contact for referral. They may be able to point a teacher towards support that is available throughout the organisation, for example the fire brigade has a learning support department who could help both an instructor adapt material for specific learning needs, but can also help an individual with different learning strategies for a more long term solution for that individual. Or there may be organisations that are able to provide specialist resources for supporting disabled learners. It could be a case of going to a voluntary or charitable organisation or their website for advice about more appropriate teaching strategies or for access to resources. These points of referral will differ depending on the type of organisation the teacher/instructor is teaching within.
References
Tummons, J, 2007. Becoming a Professional Tutor in the Lifelong Learning Sector.