The Minimum Core for Numeracy: Knowledge, Understanding and Personal Skills

Sheine Peart

• Publisher: Learning Matters
• Year: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781844455430
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Teaching Mathematics

The teacher training framework, introduced in September 2007, requires all teachers in the post-16 sector to possess knowledge, understanding and personal skills to at least level 2 in the minimum core for numeracy. Coverage and assessment of the core have to be embedded in all Certificate and Diploma courses leading to QTLS and ATLS status.

This book is a practical guide to numeracy for trainee teachers in the Lifelong Learning sector. It enables trainee teachers to identify and develop their own numeracy skills and also to support their students? numeracy.

1
Continuing professional development

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By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

• explain the importance of continuing professional development (CPD) to practitioners within the lifelong learning sector;
• describe own levels of knowledge, skills and understanding in relation to numeracy;
• determine short-, medium-and long-term personal number development needs;
• identify possible future personal progression routes in number which will help you support your learners’ experience.

Links to minimum core numeracy

This chapter relates to the following minimum core standards:

A2	Develop personal numeracy knowledge and reflect upon own experiences
	Identify own training and development needs

Links to Professional Standards

AS4	Reflection and evaluation of own practice and continuing professional development as teachers
AS7	Improving the quality of practice
CP 3.4	Ensure own personal skills in literacy, language and numeracy are appropriate for the effective support of learners

Links to Diploma in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector (DTLLS)

Unit 5

Continuing personal and professional development

Note: The Diploma qualification only requires that numeracy is integrated into the first three mandatory units (Planning and Enabling Learning, Enabling Learning and Assessment, and Theories and Principles for Planning and Enabling Learning). However, unit 5, a later mandatory unit, provides the most appropriate opportunity to specifically integrate developing personal and professional skills.

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The nature of being a professional

This remains a contested and hotly debated subject, and there is no one single agreed definition that describes being a professional tutor within the lifelong learning sector. In many ways this is not surprising as professionalism and being a professional are continually evolving concepts, and the nature of a developing debate is that it is unlikely there will be universal agreement. Indeed it may even be a fool’s errand to seek this. However, unless some notion of professionalism can at least be suggested, it becomes impossible to engage with, or extend the debate. For this reason, it is important to formulate some broad concepts of what being a professional in the lifelong learning sector could mean.

Being a professional is informed by a myriad of features. A helpful initial definition of being a professional is someone who works in those occupations where practice is underpinned by a body of discipline-specific (as well as generalist) knowledge and where principles and professionalism, including ethical behaviour and a service orientation, provide the foundation for professional practice (Higgs and Titchen, 2001, pix). Central to this definition is the idea that there is a core of information, related to an area of practice, that professionals should possess and would need to develop (possibly through a period of intense study in higher education) prior to entering the profession. Furthermore the definition also requires that professional behaviour should be informed by principles and ethics. While not specifically defining such principles the proposal that professionals should work for the benefit of clients, in a service-orientated manner, suggests that professional behaviour should be informed by the concept of ‘doing good’ for a broader community.

The IfL, the body responsible for conferring QTLS and ATLS, has published a Code of Professional Practice which identifies the behaviours required of tutors working in the lifelong learning sector. Many of these behaviours are similar to those identified in the previous definition. The code stipulates six behaviours which it expects all its members to demonstrate. These are:

• professional integrity – towards learners, colleagues, institution and the wider profession;
• respect – for learners and colleagues in accordance with relevant legislation and organisation requirements;
• reasonable care – to ensure the safety and welfare of learners;
• professional practice – to comply with Institute CPD policy and guidelines;
• disclosure – to notify the Institute of any criminal engagement;
• responsibility – to comply with the Institute’s conditions of membership.

(IfL, 2008b, p1)

Again the idea of service, this time to learners, other tutors and the sector, is clearly articulated. The Code further develops this concept by including the notions of respect and care. Importantly the Code specifically requires that members act in a manner which recognises diversity as an asset and does not discriminate in respect of race, gender, disability and/or learning difficulty, age, sexual orientation or religion and belief (IfL, 2008b, p2). This is an important difference between the IfL’s understanding of professionalism and the earlier definition given. Here is an open and clear signal to members to behave in an anti-discriminatory fashion and, by implication, support and uphold values of equality and justice.

The evolving nature of employment is also recognised, by obliging members to engage in ongoing development, recognising the constantly changing environment of the lifeling learning sector. Further the Code introduces two new concepts, of criminal disclosure and responsibility towards a professional body. As there are many young and sometimes vulnerable learners in the lifelong learning sector, there is strong justification for the first of these two new ideas. The second idea, that of responsibility towards an autonomous industry collective, is well established in other professions, for example, law and medicine, and as such it is logical that the IfL should also make this demand of its members. However, it is significant to note that neither within the IfL’s Code of Professional Practice, guidance for professional formation nor guidelines for continuing professional is there any express mention of principles or ethics to guide and inform professional behaviour. It may be that ethical behaviour is taken as an assumed norm for all education sectors including the lifelong learning sector; however, it could be questionable whether it is prudent to make this assumption.

A further difference between the IfL’s guidelines and those of some other professions is that although the IfL acknowledges the importance of subject-specific knowledge in other policy documentation, it makes no requirement for such knowledge to be formally accredited through qualifications. The only mandatory qualifications specified by the IfL are an approved teaching qualification and evidence of literacy and numeracy qualifications at or above level 2. This could be recognition that many tutors in the lifelong learning sector have developed knowledge through practical experience and lack formal qualifications. However, it does raise a noteworthy conundrum of which area is perceived to be of greater value by the IfL – subject-specific knowledge or teaching knowledge? This position initially appears to be at odds with the Further Education Teachers’ Qualifications (England) Regulations 2007, which state that those wishing to hold QTLS or ATLS should have a specialist’s subject qualification approved by the Secretary of State (DIUS, 2007, paragraphs 5.1b and 6.1b). However, as holding such qualifications is only required where the Secretary of State has decided that such a qualification is necessary (ibid), it appears both the IfL and central government are unwilling to make subject-specific qualifications a prerequisite for working in the lifelong learning sector.

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PRACTICAL TASK

Obtain a copy of the IfL’s Professional Formation document. This can be downloaded from the IfL website. Familiarise yourself with the mandatory and personal elements necessary to apply for QTLS or ATLS. Which of the elements do you feel confident you will be able to satisfy? Are there any areas where you feel you may need further training? Although you will need to complete all elements stipulated in order to make an application for QTLS or ATLS to the IfL, what is your own view of the value and the necessity of each of these components?

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The context for continuing professional development

The lifelong learning sector is, arguably, the most diverse of all education sectors. It includes teachers, trainers, tutors, lecturers and other teaching professionals (IfL, 2008b, pp3, 4) who work in traditional learning settings, such as colleges and institutions … ‘offsite’ contexts … or work-based or community learning. It is a dynamic, fast-changing and responsive sector that endeavours to meet the needs of individual learners, whole communities, employers and government. Moreover, through a commitment to national learning targets and by delivering a comprehensive and flexible education package, the sector aims to contradict the adage that ‘you can’t be all things, to all people, all of the time’. Furthermore the sector is seen as being at the centre of providing opportunities for lifelong learning, and a means of promoting economic growth, social cohesion and social justice (Jephcote et al, 2008, p164). Within this context, it is not only desirable that you, as a staff member working in the sector, update your skills but is essential if you hope to be able to keep up with the changes within and demands of the sector.

One of the principles involved in obtaining and retaining QTLS or ATLS is you will engage in a process of CPD throughout your career and should engage in a minimum of 30 hours’ professional development activity each year in order to retain your licence to practise. Although this is now clearly stated as a professional requirement, it is important to remember that professional development is not a new invention created by t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• The author
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Continuing professional development
• 2 Different factors affecting the acquisition and development of number skills
• 3 Barriers inhibiting the development of number skills
• 4 Principal disabilities and learning difficulties relating to numeracy
• 5 Numeracy and participation in public life
• 6 Numeracy processes: performing calculations
• 7 Numeracy processes: presenting information
• A final word
• Appendix 1: Glossary of acronyms
• Appendix 2: Summary of The Minimum Core for Numeracy requirements
• Index