Task 5a

At my work place we are responsible for the duty of care of the students. This duty requires that we are not negligent in providing students with a good quality education to prepare them for their future. 

The students I work with have severe learning and behavioural difficulties and are referred to our department, within the specialist school, when they have been deemed too destructive to attend mainstream school. 

These students have been let down in the past by people around them, be it at home or within an educational setting, not fulfilling their duty of care. 

To succeed in my role I must possess the ethical views that drive my ambition to fulfil my role in providing care, support and education to the young people in the whole hearted belief that they can have a positive future.

I come from a background where a morally void Apartheid Legislation restricted education. This experience has undoubtedly influenced my moral view that everyone deserves the right to access education despite their background and their physical and behavioural challenges. 

The young people I work with often have home and care environments that have not provided them with a strong sense of right and wrong. 

For these students to go on to live within society, and not on the fringes of, our role is also to guide them in the learning and adopting of a good ethical value system.

I work in a small team of likeminded people who support the challenging students in small groups, one to one sessions and in off-site environments. Due to the vulnerability of the young people and the variety of teaching settings we adopt, we have many codes of practice and regulations that we work within.

The following is a list of areas that are effected by our codes of practice and regulations where ethics apply:

Learning:

As a school we have a legal duty to care and educate our students but, as the students lack in interpersonal and social skills, we must also teach them how to interact and communicate with others. 

 Achieving qualifications is imperative, but we must also equip the students with the skills to relate and work alongside other people so that they can intergrade in society and in a business environment. 

This is a very challenging part of my work as the some of my students have ADHD.

“Adolescents with ADHD are more likely to find it difficult in making and keeping friends due to their attentional deficits causing impairments in processing verbal and nonverbal language which is important for social skills and adolescent interaction; this may result in such adolescents being regarded by their peers as immature or as losers.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_skills

We grow up hearing our parents telling us what is acceptable for us to do and what is not acceptable for us to do. Therefore, we often learn the difference between right and wrong from our parents. 

The students at our school do not come from conventional homes and most often have had multiple guardians in care. 

Therefore, they often do not have a clear sense of right and wrong which is inevitably why they have ended up being referred to us. 

I believe it is our moral duty to discuss ethical values with the young people to give them a sense of awareness of their actions and to provide a positive framework for them to live by.

Attendance:

We are under a lot of pressure to maintain attendance levels so that the education authority does not question the school capability to engage the students and to work with the parents. 

If students do not attend then a key worker or member of staff will contact the student’s guardian by phone. If there is not a legitimate reason for the young persons absence, we visit the guardian and student in their home.

Unfortunately in some cases the parent or guardian does not assist in encouraging the young person into school. 

Abstaining from school is revered in the morality of the law as it is an illegal offence, but some times an adult who is responsible for the care and welfare of a child does not deem it immoral to deny them of an education.

Respect and communication

Respect is fundamental to the ethics of the school and could not work effectively without it. Mutual respect between the parents, staff members and students is essential to a healthy working relationship. 

Although it can be challenging to work with unsupportive parents or guardians, we must not show a lack of respect or be judgemental towards them as this can quickly lead to a breakdown of communication, which inevitable becomes detrimental to the student.

Members of staff must maintain a consistent and unified voice so that students are aware of what is expected of them.

The job entails working with students that come from very difficult backgrounds. The experiences that they have had to endure can be extremely distressing and immoral. It is important that we communicate and support each other as staff members when we are upset by a certain situation.

We do not discriminate and encourage the students to do the same. This can be difficult to communicate to a student at the age of 14-15 when being different can be something that they may be targeted for. We discourage this behaviour and have a strong anti-bulling ethos within the school.  

Inclusive

The school strives to be inclusive not only with the students, but also the parents. At the start of every year parents and students are invited to the school induction day. 

This gives them a chance to meet the staff and talk through the programme that the students will be following. 

There are also parent’s evenings, home visits, annual reviews, regular phone calls home and IEP reviews.

Some students struggle at different times of the day and when they are in certain environments. 

 It is therefore imbedded in the school’s practice to continually try to look for alternatives for these students. 

This may result in working on a one to one basis only, applying a reduced workload, an off-site programme and/or providing an off-site vocational provision. 

If a student is struggling it is important that we don’t give up on them, but that we seek alternative ways to engage them.

Nurture

A nurture programme is developed with each year group to provide a safe space for students to feel that they are part of a social group. 

They sit together with their classmate to eat food around the table with different activity devised by them together with staff members. 

This include providing a quit time at the start of every morning in which students are encouraged to read books and news papers. 

This is an important time in which we encourage discussion about the news topics. It is during this time that the students are able to express and form opinions with their peers and to hear opinions of adults outside their home environment. 

This opportunity allows the students to form a more rounded moral value system.

Behaviour

Most of our students struggle with controlling their behaviour, so all staff members are trained to deal with any eventuality.

 Our students have diverse needs and can be extremely demanding. 

It is important that we stay calm and patient and are understanding of their specific needs. 

Violent outbursts can happen in our volatile work place, so it is important to stay composed and not act in a way that would further escalate the situation. 

The students have different triggers that can insight an outburst. 

This kind of information is recorded on their statement profile, which we are encouraged to read before working with them.   

Creativity

Staff members need to be creative in the way that they respond to difficult situations. 

Our students find it difficult to express themselves verbally so we must apply different methods of engagement to enable them to communicate their thoughts and feelings.

I have started to use art as a tool of communication, which has provided an opportunity for students to express their issues in a non-aggressive way. 

This has also allowed me to get to know the students better in a more informal environment.