Task 5A - Professional Ethics

Even though I have been a dance teacher for a little over 2 years now, I still find areas that I need to work on and improve in regards to some of my teaching methods, but I feel this is a good thing, because I want to be the best that I can be as a dance teacher, and also as I want to go into mainstream schools as a teacher of GCSE/A LEVEL dance, I need to be ready for anything.

When I looked up the meaning of 'ethics' - this is the answer that came up:

'moral principles that govern a person's behaviour or the conducting of an activity.'

In my workplaces, there are set principals and guidelines that not only I have to adhere to, but also the parents/students have to as well for a safe, encouraging environment for children to learn.
While they are in my care, the children should feel safe and valued with respect while also giving the teacher respect. The ways I do this are:

• To do a visual risk assessment of the area I am working in, making sure there is nothing for the children to fall over or cause an injury to themselves.
• Also doing a good warm up/cool down for the children to prevent risk of injury to their bodies.
• Talking to the children (dependant on age) in a respectful but also authoritative way so the children will learn.
• Also treating the children the way that they would like to be treated, as they learn this at mainstream school so the principle should carry on throughout.

For my enquiry, I am looking at the ways teachers act around children with autism, and seeing if dance is a good way for children with autism to grow up and prepare themselves as they grow older. The ethics here are quite a sticky subject, as on the one hand you have to treat these children the same as the other children in fear of risk of favouritism, but on the other hand there will be a sense of favouritism as you need to nurture and encourage these children probably more so than others. In my enquiry I will not name any schools, teachers, or students. And any information I get will be kept by me and disposed of after the end of my enquiry. The research I do will remain professional and anything I need approval for I will seek. Any photos/videos I record I will gain permission from the dance school used, but also the parent/guardians of the children for security reasons.

By doing this, I feel I will achieve my enquiry by doing the correct things to ensure a safe environment.

xxx