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The roles and responsibilities are many and varied for a teacher in the life long learning sector, and

do not necessarily end at the door of the classroom, something which I shall touch upon in this

essay. However I shall not be overlooking my duties inside the classroom ranging from the inclusion

of learners and valuing their diversity. I shall also be examining my own responsibilities in keeping to

legislation and codes of practice related to my practice.

To meet the needs of the learners under my care my first responsibility will to identify them first.

The first indication will be that they have enrolled on the course on the first place and can infer that

they are requiring help with numeracy. However before and during the session I must be aware of

other considerations such as if there are students that require wheelchair access and would require

a suitable room to be booked for the session. If I were to be negligent in this regard not only would a

student not be able to attend but I would also not be following the various codes of practice and

could be classed as discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. But not all the needs will be so easy

to spot, I must be mindful of the way in which I deliver my sessions to include a variety of styles to

ensure that learners that favour visual, auditory and kinaesthetic to ensure I dont accidentally

disfavour any of my learners.

It should be noted that I am not just required to attend to the physical responsibilities but also to be

mindful of equality and diversity. This will not just mean that lesson material (such as books and

hand-outs) is in a suitable format for all but to be aware of discrimination and to put a swift halt to it

should it happen. Not all considerations need to be about preventing discrimination, I will also need

to be mindful of reasons why learners cannot attend lessons for religious reasons for example, after

all in the past, equality has been described as everyone being equal, nowadays, it can be described

as everyone being different, but having equal rights (Gravells 2012)

In terms of legislation and codes of conduct to follow in regard to my practice they are mainly the

general laws regarding health and safety in the workplace (health and safety at work act 1974) and

the laws regarding safeguarding and vulnerable adults (The safeguarding vulnerable groups act

2006), among others. The latter will be of greater importance to me in my practice due to the nature

of the learners who might need help with numeracy as they are more likely to suffer from learning

difficulties, perhaps brought about by other mental health issues.

As my learners could have various needs and issues which could affect their learning, I will need to

be aware of other services that can provide assistance. For example one of my learners could be

facing eviction from their property, this will have profound effect on their learning for obvious

reasons. Even though I am not a housing officer it will fall upon me to be at least knowledgeable of

not only other services existence but also how to refer learners to them and also to be constantly

aware of subtle signs that all might not be well.

But it is important to realise that I am not an expert in those fields. Continuing the example from

above it would be improper of me to intervene and try to solve the issue myself because not only am

I not qualified and therefore could be making the situation worse for my learner, I could invariantly

break the law and I could breach any professional boundary policies in place to not only protect

myself but also the organisation I work for. In the end it will be important for me to realise when to

contribute with my skills and experience and when my involvement with other professionals ends.

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In order to deliver a lesson effectively I will not only need to maintain a supportive environment for

learning but also reduce any barriers the learners have (within my remit of course). To do this I will

need the support of the class as a whole to adhere to a set of common rules and get the class to

agree on them. One way of doing this would be to use snowballing, thus when an individual breaks

one of these rules I can count on the classes support to address this and maintain the supportive

environment that will be needed for learning as described my Tuckmanns model of forming,

storming, norming and preforming.(Tuckmann, 1965)

Not only will I be using these rules to promote good behaviour in my learners, but I shall also be

modelling them as well. This will involve my input with the rules of the class and following them as

well, but it will also involve demonstrating other positive attributes such as punctuality and personal

integrity. By showing the class these and other positive attributes it is believed that some of those

will rub off on the learners.

To summarise we need to gain the support of the class to ensure an environment where learning can

take place, this can be achieved by creating ground rules with the consent of the class and by

modelling appropriate behaviour. In addition I discussed my roles and responsibilities as a teacher

from signposting to other services, the boundaries involved and in identifying the needs of learners

to ensure that they can learn in the best way for them.