TUTORIAL PAPER TEMPLATE

ID of Student: Michael McMahon, G00383574

Article/Reading: Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers, by Quinn & Ruairc

1. CONCISE SUMMARY OF READING

The Teaching Council is the professional standards body for teaching and is there to promote and regulate the
teaching profession. The purpose of the code is threefold. It acts as a compass for teachers who want to follow a
moral and professional path throughout their careers in education and preserve the dignity and the respect due to
the teaching profession. The education community and the general public may use it to help shape their
perceptions and expectations of the Irish teaching profession. It has significant legal weight and serves as a point
of reference for the Council when it performs its investigation and disciplinary duties related to teaching fitness
(Council, 2016). This Code was set out, by the teaching council, the standards that teachers should adhere to in
their career. The councils work shows the importance of its dual mandate in supporting professional practice in
a holistic and sustainable way. There are over 90,000 registered teachers in Ireland, serving primary, post-
primary, and further education levels in education.

The Code begins by setting ethical foundations for teaching professions, encapsulated in the values respect,
care, integrity and trust reflected through the Code. Respect refers to demonstrating respect for spiritual and
cultural values, diversity, freedom and more, while care is the motivation by the best interest of teachers
students. Integrity involves honesty, reliability and moral action exercised in their profession, and finally, trust is
based on the teacher relationship with the different communities. The Code presents the professional standards
expected of teachers and to outlines teachers’ responsibilities. They are six separate standards. Professional
values and relationships express teachers to care for and respect their students, be committed to equality and
inclusion, creating positive relationships and establish trust and respect. Professional integrity describes how
teachers should have honesty in their work, respect of privacy. Professional conduct instructs teachers to uphold
the profession, ensuring students safety, work with legislations and regulations, comply with policies promoting
education, communicate effectively. Professional practice explains about keeping the high standard of practice,
clear plans, and communication of expectations, including differentiation in teaching, learning and assessment
strategies, act in the best interest of the students. Professional development discusses the sustaining and
improving of their practice. Professional Collegiality and collaboration explain working with other teachers,
students, guardians, staff members, engage in curriculum evaluation.

Complaints can be made against anyone registered with the teaching council and can be made to the teaching
council on one or more grounds. These grounds include professional misconduct, poor professional
performance, conduct contrary to the Code, and in certain situations, conviction. Only serious complaints can
progress to an inquiry. Complaints may be considered if he or she failed to comply with any provision of the act,
his or her behaviour constitutes professional misconduct, mediocre performance, he, or she has engaged in
conduct contrary to the code, he or she is medically unfit to teach.

2. CRITICAL REFLECTION

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

 I believe that the Code presents good arguments and useful information in their articles. From a beginning
teachers point of view, I believe that the Code helps point teachers in the correct direction for their practice and
profession. These guidelines are designed to help prepare teachers for the profession and will assist them
through the different situations they may encounter in their practice. Power DMS (staff, 2020) best describes
guidelines and what they are on their site. They state that “Guidelines guide employees through a process or a
task. They give general recommendations of how to perform a task, or advice on how to proceed in a situation..”
I feel it is important for us teachers to have these guidelines accessible to us whenever we may need them. The
way the article is shaped, I believe is also a positive. For me, it was an easy-to-read article and help recognise
what the aim of the code is, to help teachers through their practise and ensure decent quality teaching
professions are in place. The importance of article structure can be seen in Docherty and Smiths article, ‘The
case for structuring the discussion of scientific papers’ (Docherty & Smith, 1999);

“Structure is important so that readers don’t become lost. They should know where they’ve come from,
where they are, and where they are headed. A strong structure also allows readers to know where to
look for particular information and makes it more likely that all important information will be
included”.

As a teacher it is important to know the standards and values in place for teachers which is clearly stated in the
code. The four values respect, care, integrity, and trust are definitely values a teacher should have and I agree
with what the code says about them. Looking at the values more though, I believe there are more values that a
teacher should have. These values include expertness and persevering. A teacher should be an expert about their
curriculum and be able to express their expertise for students to obtain and also to lead meaningful discussions
to help students put ideas together. Without the knowledge of the topic, teachers will fail to help their students
progress and students will be unfamiliar with the subject. Being an expert in a certain subject allows a teacher to
create new learning experiences for the students to help them develop better knowledge of the subject.
Persevering, for me, is a big one, having the motivation to keep going when times get tough is vital for both
teachers and students. As said by TigerCampus in their article, “Students who have the perseverance to stick
with something until they succeed are more likely to get good grades and go on to college than those who give
up easily” (Team, 2023). As a beginning construction and DCG teacher, projects, day practices and the leaving
cert itself can all make it tough and hard to see how to get through it all but with perseverance along with the
other values, it will work out. This is also the same case for students as well as managing all their other subjects
but with perseverance, they will be able to work through their tasks.

One thing I really liked about this article was the attention to detail it gave and one part that really stood out to
me was the section on the six standards that apply to registered teachers. I felt the information that it provided
was talking about that exact standard that it was describing. To me, I was able to understand what the standard
meant following the reading of the different points under it. Through out the paper I feel the information it was
giving was useful and to the point. Adami best describes the importance of information from his article ‘What is
information?.’ He states “…information is that which allows you (who is in possession of that information) to
make predictions with accuracy better than chance” (Adami, 2016). There was no excess of words or un-needed
information from what I read of the article. If I were to just read the headings, I believe, I would maybe get
some of the information but also could have gotten the information wrong. With the information the authors
provided, I was able to get a full understanding of what the standards were talking about and what the rest of the
code was informing me about.
I believe that this paper was very informational and was structured in a great format. Some areas may have room
to add more such as the values. Looking at the values, as discussed, there may be room for more and examples
of the values in use for a better understanding of when to use them, but this article is really beneficial and a
great guid for teachers in their profession.

3. LIST OF REFERENCES

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

References
Adami, C. (2016). What is information? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical,
Physical and Engineering Sciences, 20150230.

Council, T. (2016). Code of Professional Conduct. 6.

Docherty, M., & Smith, R. (1999). The case for structuring the discussion of scientific papers. BMJ, 1224-
1225.

staff, P. D. (2020, December 22). The difference between guidelines vs policies. Retrieved from Power
DMS: https://www.powerdms.com/policy-learning-center/guidelines-vs-policies

Team, T. (2023, May 11). The Importance of Perseverance for Student Success. Retrieved from
TigerCampus: https://www.tigercampus.hk/importance-perseverance-student-sucess/
#:~:text=Perseverance%20is%20an%20important%20skill,those%20who%20give%20up
%20easily.

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024