ABSTRACT

The last of the QTS Standards relating to Professional Values and Practice (1.8) requires that teachers ‘…are aware of, and work within, the statutory frameworks relating to teachers’ responsibilities’ (TTA, 2003). One way of approaching this is to start by learning what the statutory frameworks set out, and then to use this to work out what responsibilities are involved. New teachers, though, face multiple responsibilities from their first day in school, and there is an immediate need to get to grips with what exercising professional responsibility means in real everyday situations. We have therefore chosen to approach this Standard by concentrating on real situations reported by student teachers, identifying the specific responsibilities each situation involves, and discussing these responsibilities against the background of both statutory and nonstatutory frameworks.