Essay Title

Submit a detailed essay that identifies and analyses the key roles and
responsibilities of a teacher/trainer within the education and training
sector.
Essay written by
Rokonuddin Ahmed
Submission date
01 December 2015

Introduction
This essay will identify and analyse the key roles and responsibilities of
a teacher within the education and training sector. Wilson (2014, p 4)
stated that, The role and responsibility of the teacher is a complex one.
We are charged with ensuring our learners gain their qualifications in a
manner which is favourable to their own learning needs and those of the
Awarding Organisations. Therefore a teacher must have a clear
understanding of their roles and responsibilities in order to be an
effective teacher. Keeping this in mind, firstly this essay will discuss the
education and training sector along with the general roles and
responsibilities. Secondly we will analyse the key roles and
responsibilities. Thirdly this essay will critically review Further Education
and Offender Learning sector in the context of education provisions,
roles and responsibilities of a teacher, the governments view on the
sectors, and teaching and learning environment. Finally I will review my
own teaching practice in light of the roles and responsibilities that will be
discussed in this essay.
Education and training sector
The education and training sector has many connotations depending on
the context. It is also referred to by terminologies such as the lifelong
learning sector, post-compulsory sector, vocational education, adult
education and continuing professional development (OGrady 2013).
It is a diverse sector and covers Adult and Community Learning, Further
Education (FE) Colleges, Higher Education, Work Based Learning,
Training Providers, Sixth Form Colleges and the Voluntary Sector
(Wilson 2014). Education and training also takes place in non-school

settings such as in prisons or hospitals. Education provided in a prison

setting is commonly referred to as offender learning.
Ofsted inspects all providers in this sector for quality assurance
purposes.
Two government bodies namely, Education Funding Agency (EFA) and
Skills Funding Agency (SFA) are charged with overseeing the funding
for the education and training sector. EFA funds learners up to the age
of 18 year and SFA funds 19+ year learners.

General roles & responsibilities

Regardless of the sector it is important for a teacher to have a clear
understanding of the roles and responsibilities, as this would allow
personal and organisational objectives to be met and avoid omission of
duties.
Roles can be defined as a series of expectations set by an education
provider and Responsibilities can be defined as the finer details of the
roles, which clarifies the contractual obligations of a teacher to their
employer.
Although this is not an exhaustive list, the various roles and
responsibilities of a teacher are: facilitator, mentor, information provider,
curriculum planer, evaluator, assessor, resource developer, role model,
motivator, keeping records, managing disruptive behaviours, maintain a
professional boundary, keeping up to date with their subject knowledge
and staying abreast with technological trends, duty of care,
administrator, understanding and following the Education & Training

Foundations professional standards, knowing inspecting and awarding

bodies requirements, and pastoral care.
In order to carry out these responsibilities effectively, just subject
knowledge will not suffice. A teacher must have an understanding of the
missions and visions of their organisation, legislations related to the
sector and lastly inspecting and awarding bodies requirements.
Key roles and responsibilities
The most important role of a teacher is to impart knowledge to their
learners. To do this, first and foremost a teacher will have to have
grasps of the curriculum to engage the learners with meaningful
activities and be skilful in delivery of lessons. A teacher will have to take
into account students learning styles, abilities and personalities. For
effective teaching and learning a teacher will have to design lessons
such that it is accessible by all in the classroom (Hughes, n.d.).
It is my belief that teaching and learning is effective when a teacher
thinks of all his learners as individuals. Each learner will have a different
learning styles (Scales 2008), and individual needs, which can be
explained by Maslows hierarchy of needs (Petty 2009). In order for
learning to be complete, a teacher has to make sure that all the skills in
the Blooms Taxonomy are attained (Petty 2009).
All educational establishments are subject to Government legislations.
Therefore it is the responsibility of a teacher to have an understanding of
current legislative requirements pertaining to their sector, such as Health
and Safety at Work Act (1974), The Management of Health and Safety
at Work Regulations (1999), Data Protection Act (1998), Safeguarding
Act (2014), and Equality Act 2010. By having an understanding of these
regulations, a teacher can take informed decisions about their
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professional boundaries, such as, when to refer a learner with learning

difficulties.
A key role of a teacher is to know their learners profile. For this a
teacher will conduct an initial assessment to identify learners
motivations, aspirations and skills (Machin, 2014). Then the teacher will
conduct a diagnostic assessment to establish starting points (Wilson,
2014). By conducting these assessments a teacher establishes learning
styles, prior learning and achievements, learning difficulties, numeracy,
language and literacy skills (Wilson 2014). These assessments will
enable a teacher to plan for inclusive teaching and appropriate
resources development. On the other hand these assessments may
highlight certain needs that they cannot deal with, such as financial
needs, which they will need to refer to an appropriate authority.
Petty (2009, p 553) stated, The best teachers and institutions adapt to
the individual needs of their students rather than always using one-sizefits-all approaches. This concept is otherwise known as inclusion. One
of the major responsibilities of a teacher is to make teaching and
learning inclusive. By embracing inclusivity, a teacher is addressing EDI
(Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) in the classroom. Equality means that
a teacher has to treat all learners equally without any favouritism or
preference to any of the nine protected groups, which is stated in the
Equality and Diversity Law (2010). How can a teacher be inclusive? By
taking into consideration the outcomes of the initial and diagnostic
assessments. These information will enable a teacher to plan and
deliver inclusive teaching and learning by creating or updating a SoW
(Schemes of Work) and making appropriate session plans.
Once a teacher has devised an inclusive teaching and learning plan, it is
the responsibility of the teacher to produce differentiated resources that
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will address inclusion. The differentiated approach will address the

needs of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic learners. Effective application
of Blooms Taxonomy will ensure differentiated resources planning. In
addition to the differentiated resources, a teacher can use techniques
such as paired learning, case studies, explaining tasks, learner
presentation, researching, teacher led discussion and worksheet. By
producing differentiated resources a teacher is addressing the learning
needs of all the learners.
While teaching and learning is taking place, it is the responsibility of a
teacher to ascertain that the learners are learning, by means of
assessment. A teacher can check on learners progress by providing a
continual informative feedback (Petty, 2014). This is called formative
assessment. This can be achieved through a question and answer
session, a quiz or test, open ended questions, solving a past
examination paper, self, peer and group assessment. The formative
assessment will indicate a students level of understanding of the subject
being taught or lack of it, so if needed a teacher can take corrective
actions. A teacher will also conduct summative assessment. This type of
assessment determines an overall grade and gives an opportunity for
learners to explore progression options (Machine, 2013). Conducting
assessment is an important role and responsibility, because an
educational establishment will be ultimately judged on its learners
performance by the wider public in general and by the inspecting and
awarding bodies in particular.

The FE and Offender Learning Sector

The Further Education Sector
In his report, Foster (2005, page 3) made absolutely clear the leading
role of a Further Education (FE) College is, to improve employability
and skills in its local area contributing to economic growth and social
inclusion. Based on this assertion, OGrady (2013, p 62-63) stated,
Further Education provision, over the last decade or so, has moved
from one where there was a strong focus on vocational, remedial,
second chance or part time learning for adults, either accredited or not,
to one which has become a central and key provider of learning that is
driven to meet the economic demands of the country. That said, FE
colleges continue to offer a range of courses from pre-entry (below level
1) to higher education (level 7) according to the Qualifications Credit
Framework (QCF) (Machin 2014), to post compulsory learners. Due to
the sheer breath of qualifications offered, sometime it is characterised as
the everything else sector (Panchamia, nd).
Offender Learning Sector
According to Costelloe (2014), the UK Government views a prisoner
primarily as an offender, therefore the Offender Learning (OL) is
concerned with mainly reducing re-offending. For this reason, OL is a
key priority to the Governments Skills for Life strategy (Wilson, 2014).
Although, it appears that the intended outcome of the offender education
is to reduce the re-offending rate, but there is a growing demand for
employment-focused programmes (OGrady, 2013). This view has been
echoed by Schuller (2009) and Natalie (2010).
According to Natalie (2010), there is a clear correlation between a lack
of functional skills and offending. Research showed that prisoners who
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gain employment after release are far less likely to re-offend. This
finding has been taken into account by HMP Oakwood (Singh, nd) and
HMP North Sea Camp (Poll, nd). They have embedded maths and
English in their curriculum for the OL.
The organisation that oversees the OL in prisons is known as the
Offenders Learning and Skills Service (OLASS), which is managed by
the SFA. Although OLASS is charged with integrating offender education
with mainstream academic and vocational provisions, the recent
changes in funding provision will have an impact on the delivery of the
functional skills courses (Poll, ND). The courses offered in prisons are
functional skills, vocational courses, arts & crafts and some higher
education.
The teaching & learning environment
First and foremost the offender learning take place in a prison, therefore
there will be a few obvious differences in the teaching and learning
environment. Certain factors are not conducive to learning which include
movement between prisons, length of sentence; lack of internet access
(Pike, 2012), access to tutor, poor educational background, mental and
physical disability (Cripps, 2014). On the other hand the teaching and
learning environment in the FE sector is very much learner centric.
Roles and responsibilities
The roles and responsibilities of a FE teacher will be similar to the ones
that have been mentioned in this essay. In my opinion an additional role
of an FE teacher is to implement employability skills in their session
plan. Due to the very nature of a prison, a prison teacher may have a
few additional roles and responsibilities, such as prisoner supervision at
all times or accountability for tools and equipment.
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Critical Review of the two sectors

Despite the similarities in terms of the education provided, it is clear that
there are some stark differences between these two sectors. The
learners of one sector are free citizens and the learners of the other
sector are inmates of a prison. It could be said that the main driving
force for the FE sector is to generate economic growth by means of
education, in comparison to the prison education, the primary expected
outcome is to reduce re-offend. It appears that the FE sector offers a
broad range of courses whereas courses offered in prisons are limited.
Lastly FE colleges are education providers and prisons are a correction
facilities, where education is not the top priority. The other critical
difference is that the FE sector learners have to meet a minimum entry
requirements, on the other hand it would appear that over 50% offender
learners do not have any qualifications at all (Natale, 2010). Although
Prisons (Sunil, nd) have introduced minimum entry requirements, it
remains to be seen if this will create an entry barrier. Consequently we
can ask how inclusive prison education is. It is difficult to comprehend
how prison education can be inclusive (Nahmad-Williams, 2011), but
there is some evidence that inclusive teaching has been embraced (Poll,
nd). I am teaching functional skills maths in an FE college as part of my
PGCE course requirements. Based on the above analysis it could be
said that teaching maths in prisons will not be very dissimilar to teaching
in the FE sector, as I will not require special equipment or setup, which
would be the case for a woodwork course.
Evaluation of my own teaching practice
The groups that I teach are of very low ability and motivation level is low
too. I have taught maths for several years at GCSE level and above,
therefore I am finding teaching at this level challenging. Nevertheless I
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believe my delivery is satisfactory and inclusive, but due to the lack of

teaching experience at entry level 3 and level 1, I have yet to master the
art of appropriately differentiate resources to meet learners needs. I am
regularly reflecting my practice in order to improve teaching and learning
for the benefit of the learners and myself.
I have learnt from my PGCE lessons to praise students, whether it is
verbally or written. This has produced a positive and conducive
classroom environment.
I have now reduced my teaching commitments to concentrate only on
one group, so that I can invest more time and energy to fine-tune my
teaching practice. Despite the various challenges, I will meet the roles
and responsibilities with the guidance of my PGCE tutor and placement
supervisor to overcome this issue as quickly as possible.
Conclusion
This essay has considered the importance of having a thorough
understanding of roles and responsibilities, for a teacher to effectively
carry out duties in general and deliver teaching and learning in
particular. The key roles and responsibilities have been analysed. These
are legislations pertaining to education, planning inclusion, teaching and
learning through differentiation and lastly learners assessment. Within
the sector we have examined two contrasting education provisions for
learners, the Further Education and Offender Learning sectors. The first
sector was concerned with its learners employability, hence contributing
to the economic growth of this nation and the latter was concerned with
reducing the re-offending rate, which in effect will reduce costs for the
government in the long run. As far as the government is concerned the
goals for the two sectors are somewhat different, but as far as a teacher
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is concerned, there is no real difference between the two sets of

learners. As teachers, our job is to deliver teaching and learning
regardless of learners background and it is in this context, we the
teachers need to have a clear understanding of the roles and
responsibilities so we can deliver effective teaching and learning.
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