Compulsory Responses – Integrity in Practice
Code of Conduct and Standard of Practice:
The code of conduct and standards of practice follow the Public Sector Ethics act 1994 and dictate the process and policies that a teacher must uphold to work professionally with children. The code of conduct has teachers act and uphold four principles which are integrity and impartiality, promote the public good, commitment to the government system, and accountability and transparency.
Professional Boundaries:
As a beginning teacher, teachers need to thoroughly consider the relationship they have with students. Professional boundaries provide a guideline for the appropriate communication with students. Teachers should consider the implications and potential harm they can cause when interacting with students in an inappropriate fashion.
Appropriate communications (social media/electronic communication):
Beginning teachers should consider their personal use of things such as social media. Teachers should consider how they protect their personal life and what is appropriate between teachers and students. This will mean denying friend requests from suspected students, using privacy settings, and considering the content they publish. Teachers must not communicate with students through personal social media and should do their best to prevent students’ communication with them.
Conflict of Interest:
Conflict of interests can occur when both personal and professional life intersect. Beginning teachers should be aware of the affect things they do in their personal life can have actual, potential, and perceived implications on their professional life.
Information management and security:
Beginning teachers must be effective in ensuring that confidential information is secure, whether this be through locking personal and school devices, destroying unneeded information and not repeating information. Teachers need to further consider their personal information and use confidential information with care.
Gifts and benefits:
Employees of the Department of Education must refuse gifts and benefits given to them by members of the public that is money, gift cards or lottery and gifts that could be perceived to hinder the impartial nature of being a teacher. Beginning teachers should be made aware of this and consider the perception gifts can have in the public.
Ethical decision making:
Beginning teachers must be aware at all times of the decisions they make every day that could affect the lives of staff, students, and the community around them. Teachers need to carefully consider every decision and understand the processes for making professional decisions and reporting.
Mandatory reporting:
Mandatory reporting means meeting expectations to report expected wrongdoing inside and outside of the education system. As a teacher it is the role of a beginning teacher to report all expected wrongdoing that is not consistent with the code of conduct. This means reporting through the correct channels through principals, intake, or HR.
Compulsory Responses – The Benefits and Uses of OneSchool
OneSchool offers teachers a range of opportunities for supporting students and furthering the professional responsibilities of a teacher. OneSchool can provide teachers with data for analysis and discussion, students monitoring, individual and group strategies for students, and records that support students’ movements and transitions. OneSchool is used across schools in Queensland and can provide gateways to achieving both the administrative and organisational goals of teachers through reporting and managing students’ data. OneSchool provides academic reporting on students across both individual, and class groups which can help teachers implement strategies for improvement and provide key information for report cards, students feedback and for parent and teacher communication. The academic data can be used practically to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses across time over past achievements and can be used to engage several strategies for improving student’s overall mark. OneSchool can further be used to inform many teaching and learning implications for both the teacher and students. Through the student notes the school, teacher and parents can develop a profile of students that can be used to identify diverse needs of students whether they be behavioural need for support or disability. Further notes in the students’ notes could provide medical details on students to inform teachers or staff working with students. These notes provide a way to keep up to date with student’s movements and needs and provide school staff at all levels with key information for achieving student safety and keeping in line with both administrative and organisational responsibilities.
Professional Engagement Response – Queensland Teachers’ Union & Independent Education Union
Education unions work to provide teachers with security in the workplace, through negotiating working conditions unions build a better environment for teachers in turn helping students. Education unions such as the Queensland Teachers Union and the Independent Education Union both work to build strength in numbers throughout schools around Queensland. These unions can support teachers by providing them with access to better bargaining power in a large teaching community throughout Queensland. Unions such as these work as a collective voice for teachers all over Queensland and the greater national region by advocating for teachers working conditions through enterprise bargaining agreements. These agreements not only strengthen working conditions such as the conversion to permanency process and gaining non-contact time for teachers, but these unions also push for pay raises with several pay rises taking place over the last 6 years. These unions offer a range of process to help teachers, with a focus on helping beginning teachers in the early stages of their careers by offering processes, guides, and supports for things like workload reduction, non-contact time, behaviour management, local and state endeavours, salaries, and class sizes. With support from unions teachers can feel at ease throughout their career, with increases in satisfaction and teaching ability students gain interactive, professional and engaged educators with the no how to both handle and teach students of all needs.
Career Readiness Response – Working effectively and making the most of teacher aide time
Teacher aides offer the teacher and the students key in class support through a range of impacts they have on the learning environment in the classroom. Teacher aides engage in behaviours management and curriculum instruction when in the class and can be used more effectively to focus on supporting a range of students or an individual student. A primary focus for utilising teacher aides would be to develop positive interactions with them and discuss learning goals of the class prior to when the education of students is taking place. This could mean meeting with teacher aides to develop collegial relationships and enhancing students’ education through precise planning for the goals of the teacher aide in a classroom. Teachers should thoroughly consider when and when not to deploy a teacher aide to assist students as teacher aides may provide targeted learning advantages when deployed correctly and not if deployed incorrectly. Teacher aides should further be used in routine, if possible, as teacher aides may move around classes their involvement should ultimately be predictable to both teacher and students. Ultimately teacher aide time if allocated to a teacher should be considered heavily in order to gain the best advantages, building trust and collegiality with the teacher aide and using them effectively, when necessary, without over use is key in providing students with opportunities for self and academic improvement.
References
Fitzsimmons, D. (n.d.). Oneschool. Queensland Government, Department of Education. USQ study desk. https://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/mod/folder/view.php?id=2552798.
Independent Education Union. (n.d.). Do what teachers do – join the QTU and IEU!. IEU Queensland and Northern Territory Branch. USQ study desk. https://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/mod/page/view.php?id=2552799.
Kinnear, M. (n.d.). Considerations for effective use of teacher aides and support staff. USQ study desk. https://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/mod/page/view.php?id=2552809.
Lavelle, C (Host). (2022). Integrity in Practice. Queensland Government, Department of Education. USQ study desk. https://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/mod/page/view.php?id=2552796.
