Chceds033 Project A (5rat)

Learning Support Officers (LSO) encounter many forms of legislations, policies, obligations and
procedures in their employment they must adhere to. This undertaking is crucial for maintaining
the safety and wellbeing of students in their care, as well as insuring they themselves are free
from legal problems or concerns.
Some examples obligations and procedures they must adhere to include:

• School-based health and safety policies: To meet their ethical and legal obligations, staff must
take the time to obtain the required training. This can usually be organized by the school, but it
is crucial that education staff have basic first-aid training.
• Mandatory reporting: is a form of documentation that relates to legal and ethical obligations.
In a situation where a student was experiencing abuse from a family member, it is the LSO’s
legal and ethical obligation to complete a report and advise their Supervisor. Even if the student
has confided in the LSO privately, the obligation of mandatory reporting would override
confidentiality. This would be a situation where there is a conflict of interest, however, the
student’s immediate safety and protection is always a LSO’s priority, and therefore a mandatory
report must be completed.
• Responding to an emergency: During a fire evacuation, the LSO must listen to their
supervisor’s instructions and ensure that they support their supervisor. This may include
keeping students calm and orderly, repeating instructions if they need clarification and help
supervisors to clear pathways safely.
• Duty of cares the legal or moral responsibility to protect the safety and wellbeing of others: a
student has cut their hand during art class. It is an LSO’s duty of care to medically assist. The LSO
would deal with the injury by cleaning and covering the wound, making the area safe then filling
out an incident report to ensure that the incident is documented. If the LSO could not perform
first-aid alone (e.g., the wound was too big/ required stitching), then it is their job to help the
child access the support by taking them to the first-aid office and then filling out an incident
report.
• Non-compliance: If a teacher has been given an expensive gift by a student and has decided to
keep it a secret this could be seen as inducement. This is an example of non-compliance to
ethical and legal obligations because the gift may be used as an incentive to receive special
treatment.
The LSO should schedule a meeting with their supervisor and must provide objective
information about the situation. The LSO, with the help of their supervisor, can complete a
written report including the reasons why they are concerned and submit this report to the
school. The report should only include factual information.
If an LSO needed to determine the most appropriate responses for the example situations
above, there are a variety of sources they can access, including:
 The school’s policies and procedures;
 Government Agencies;
 The national guidelines
 Employees handbook
 National Quality Framework
 Ask senior staff
 Supervising teachers
Similarly, to clarify an understanding of legal and ethical responsibilities, there are several ways
to gain feedback and explanations. This could be from seeking feedback from staff members –
particularly our supervising teacher, following up information during staff meetings, and reading
information from any official school policies and procedures, or your state’s legislation. An LSO
must be guided in everything they do by legal and ethical responsibilities. These responsibilities
allow them to keep a safe and healthy environment for the students, themselves and their co-
workers.
Both legal and ethical issues are guided by legislation and therefore any clarification can be
obtained through this legislation. Similarly, the issues surrounding ethical and legal obligations,
such as anti-discrimination, duty of care, and privacy, greatly overlap. The most prominent
difference between legal and ethical issues is the outcome of not adhering to them. While
ethical issues are important and should be dealt with using proper practices, they will usually
not involve legal action and serious consequences like the breach of a legal obligations will.
Seeking feedback is a crucial part of adhering to legal and ethical requirements. This should both
both personal practices and feedback for the school’s official policies and procedures to identify
improvement areas. It is necessary to seek feedback to ensure that the students receive the
highest quality of education and support. There are many ways to gain feedback. We can seek
feedback from others by asking for our supervisor’s observations of our performance, talking to
senior staff members or parents, during meetings, or receiving formal reports.
LSO should also be proactive in sharing feedback if they believe there is room for improvement.
This ensures that the policies and procedures continue to be enhanced to match the
requirements of the environment. If they need to give feedback to someone, this can be
presented either written or verbal, and the best method must be chosen for the specific
situation. The most common way support workers can give feedback is to share their
observations with their supervising teacher because they work closely together. This could be a
passing suggestion in class or a written report or email for more serious or routine feedback. It is
also important to share the feedback with all stakeholders so that the problems can be directly
dealt with.
As well as providing feedback for co-workers and supervising teachers, personal reflection is just
as crucial for support workers to identify areas of improvement and improve their performance.
No LSO is perfect, so giving ourselves feedback and actively addressing areas of weakness will
ensure we can support the students in the best way possible. Maintaining everyday awareness
and watching our interactions with students can help us to reflect on our practices and look for
areas of improvement. We could also keep a journal of these interactions to notice any patterns
or trends.

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Learning Support Officers (LSO) encounter many forms of legislations, policies, obligations and

Some examples obligations and procedures they must adhere to include:

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