TUTORIAL PAPER

ID of Student: G00393839
Article/Reading: Professional Code of Conduct

1. CONCISE SUMMARY OF READING

The professional code of conduct for teachers is a document created in aims to

direct teachers into developing their own professional careers and grow in their field
of work. It was established in 2006 to promote teachers learning. A rise in the number
of people seeking to venture down this career path in recent years meant that Irish
educators must have a standard across the board in training these teachers to
ensure to maintain a high calibre of teachers. As a result, the professional code of
conduct for teachers was created so all teachers would adhere to these guidelines
to uphold utmost professionalism.

The key points of The Professional Code of Conduct for Teachers are:
1. It serves as a guiding compass as teachers seek to
steer an ethical and respectful course through their
career in teaching and to uphold the honour and
dignity of the teaching profession.

2. It may be used by the education community and

the wider public to inform their understanding and
expectations of the teaching profession in Ireland.

3. It has an important legal standing and is used by

the Council as a reference point in exercising its
investigative and disciplinary functions under Part
Five of the Teaching Council Acts, 2001 - 2015, dealing
with fitness to teach.
(Council, 2016)

In conclusion the professional code of conduct for teachers document is an

important guideline on offer to teachers training to become a teacher and for
experienced teachers who seek assistance in improving their professionalism in their
career. For students starting off within the classroom it can be overwhelming being
put into a classroom environment. A number of new challenges will arise, and this
document is an effective way for student teachers to base their ethical values and
beliefs on to start off on a good path in their career.

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

2. CRITICAL REFLECTION

When reading the professional code of conduct for teachers, there was a high
volume of useful information within this document which I feel can help sculpt a
better foundation for my values and beliefs as an educator. Paying particular
attention to the respect, integrity, trust, and care aspect of the document. These
are four important qualities to have when teaching and all tie in with each other
and work collaboratively.
The strengths pf the article is it is simple to navigate and there is no sense of being
overwhelmed when presented with the document. It is short and straight to the
point which makes it easy to read and to remember to find a particular source of
information you remember reading. Another strength of the document I feel is
useful is that the teaching council offers you the option to make a query about
any complaints you have encountered in which you fell the professional code of
conduct for teachers document fails to answer.
This document is also logically structured well. Each section gets is own page and
nothing more. This also helps locate information being sought out as there is not a
large body of text to scan through in aims to find what you are after. A
suggestion I might give if asked to would be to have a case study section of a
number of real life/ made up situations which explore areas of good teaching
professionalism or experiences which may assess your teaching professionalism
and how to deal with it.
Although the professional code of conduct for teachers is an Irish document
published by the Irish teaching council, it was not originally drafted up by Irish
and Irish alone. For over a decade now the EU has been focusing on the
importance in improving the quality of teachers being produced in Europe to
improve the level of education being taught in schools. “As Sahlberg et al. put it,
as a
member state, Ireland has been ‘influenced by the European Commission’s work
on teacher education … one of the priorities of the EU is to improve teacher
quality and teacher education’ (O'Donoghue et al., P181, 2017). Wheh reading
the teaching standards of the UK I came across a sentence which was of interest
to me. They outline in the document that the teaching standards are “used to
assess the performance of all teachers with QTS who are subject to The
Education (School Teachers’ Appraisal) (England) Regulations 2012, and may
additionally be used to assess the performance of teachers who are subject to
these regulations and who hold qualified teacher learning and skills”. (Education,
2011, p. 3) This raises the question to me that do teachers in the UK face
assesments on their impication of their teaching qualities following their teaching
standards document? Because in ireland we don’t seem to have such
assesment and it poses the question how come not and whether it would be a
good idea or not.
Although the Irish and UK standards for teaching are similar, when reading the
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers I noticed straight away that there
was a clear change in the amount of text on offer. When you opne the
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers I couldn’t help but feel

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

 overwhelmed by the high volume of text on all the pages. I found this was much
harder to read and navigate. There was also a different between the standards
being presented to the Australian Teachers. They have seven standards in which
they expect teachers to follow.
Standard 1: Know students and how they learn
Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it
Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments
Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
Standard 6: Engage in professional learning
Standard 7: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the
community
(Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2018)
These standards seem to me as they are more based around the teaching
aspect of your career as opposed to the irish approach which seems more
centered around building a good relationship with your students and colleagues.
This may be to the fact that Australia is a much more populated area than
ireland both in the country and the classroom and it may be challenging to build
a good relationship with such a large quantitiy of students. But I feel the irish
Professional Code of Conduct for Teachers could also focus more on the
teaching aspect in being a good educator in your subject area to ensure best
learning environement for your students.
Speaking from experience I never had an issue with classroom behaviour and I
like to think that my qualities and values as a teacher has prevented me from
having these issues. From early stages of studying to become a teacher we were
introduced to the professional code of conduct for teachers in ireland and I
always paid particular attention to the section which speaks about respect,
integrity, trust and care. We were asked ourselves when studying to aim to base
our teaching off these values and that is what I aimed for. As a person I always
believed in respect and trust. If a you respect a student and a student respects
you then you will build a foundation of trust over time which I feel is essential in
maintaining a positive environment whithin the education sector. I feel that this
document is a good standard for teachers to base their teaching qualities off.
Although I have had a positive experience I would be interested to know what
other teachers have experienced with it. And I feel it may be beneficial for
longer servicing teachers to be kept up to date with this document.

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024

 3. LIST OF REFERENCES

References
Council, T. T. (2016). Code of Professional Conduct for Teachers. Retrieved from Teaching Council.

Education, D. o. (2011). Teachers’ Standards. Guidance for school leaders, school staff and governing
bodies.

Leadership, A. I. (2018). Australian Professional Standards for Teachers .

O'Donoghue, T. (2017). Teacher Preparation in Ireland : History, Policy and Future Directions.

© ATU Dept. of Creative Education 2023-2024