Priorities Within Scottish Education

Priorities Within Scottish Education Education Scotland makes certain inclusion is a key priority within Scottish education. The purpose of the writing is to discuss in detail why inclusion takes precedence and what the significant change in meaning proposes for schools and teachers today. In order to do this effectively, the writing will demonstrate an understanding of the concept of an inclusive school and what exactly it entails. Particular aspects of an inclusive school will be considered, such as, the curriculum, disability, behaviour management and lifestyle of gypsy and travelling families. These aspects will be examined thoroughly to suggest implications for me as an individual teacher. It is necessary to analyse the professional impact of inclusion policies and draw on placement experience, offering exemplification of how inclusion was reflected. Throughout, findings from literature and other sources will be referred to in order to justify the piece of writing, informing discussion and argument. In previous years there has been a growing debate regarding the meaning of inclusion. The original meaning was solely based on children who a disability or learning need. The term special educational needs (SEN) was established by the 1978 Warnock Report (Department for Education and Science (DES), 1978) and was seen as a more acceptable way of viewing children, than the earlier definition of handicaps which derived from the Education (Mentally Handicapped Children) (Scotland) Act 1974. The expressions integration or mainstreaming were used to direct the attention to children with SEN who were placed in mainstream schools. Thus, came the idea from Warnock (DES, 1978) who believed there were three key types of integration. These were, locational, social and functional (DES, 1978). Locational was when children with SEN were placed in a unit/base within a mainstream school, however were distanced from the mainstream children. Social was seen to be when children with SEN were integrated with mainstream children for social events, but were separated for the rest of the time. Lastly, functional was where children, regardless of disability, were located in their local mainstream school and placed in the same classroom as their mainstream peers. Shortly afterwards, advances meant that the term integration was used more widely to describe provision rather than the three key types defined in the Warnock Report (DES, 1978). This stemmed further controversy concerning the exact meaning of integration. The term was criticised and was later claimed that integration was not anxious with the worth of childrens experiences in mainstream schools but much rather the inclusive pedagogy (Farrell and Ainscow 2002). While children were included in the school environment, the principles of an inclusive school were not meeting their purpose. Allan (2008), as cited by Bryce and Humes (2008) argued that even children in mainstream schools could be segregated (feel isolated) within a classroom, which posed the question, how were teachers to know if childrens needs were met adequately? For several reasons, the term SEN was emphasised which lead to a more common way in describing the degree to which a child who had SEN, was truly integrated within mainstream schools (Farrell and Ainscow, 2002). In this sense, the term signified the degree to which a school was welcoming and valued individual contributions. Inclusion, therefore, had to more effective in allowing all children to be included and participate fully in the learning environment in order for individual learning needs to be met. Within my placement school there were three supported classes where all experiences were catered for individual childrens needs. Staff worked effectively to ensure all children from the supported classes attended appropriate mainstream classes. For example, one boy in the supported class 7/6/5 attended Primary 4 on a Wednesday morning for Maths. Unfortunately, several schools have not yet moved with the times and still believe children with a disability or who have severe learning di fficulties must be segregated from their mainstream peers (Ekens and Grimes, 2009). I will ensure my positive attitude to this shines through and everything possible is done to include and meet childrens needs. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was established in 1989 and was the first legislative document to deal with the rights of the child globally. The agreement has 54 articles which highlight the importance of human rights. Many of the rights are centred on inclusion, particular within education. Two articles that emphasise this are article 28 and 29 which give children the entitlement to an education and affirm that education ought to increase childrens talents in enabling them to reach their full potential. It is evident from placement experience how difficult it is for teachers to progress all children to allow them to reach their full potential. This is due to the wide range of abilities there is within any one classroom. Although this is the aim for all teachers, it is a compound matter that requires great skill in achieving (Loreman, Deppeler and Harvey, 2009). Coinciding with the UNCRC (1989), the Standards in Scotlands Schools Etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 made clear all children go to mainstream schools unless factors, such as unsuitability, harmfulness to other children or cost prohibited children in doing so. The Act had many similarities with the UNCRC (1989); however the main change was that it passed on the right to children to have a say in their education rather than it solely being down to their parents/carers having the decision. Unlike the Warnock Report (DES, 1978) these two pieces of legislation moved away from integration and concentrated more on inclusion. It was clear from this that forthcoming legislation was considering the concept of inclusion much wider than just disability. Count Us In: Achieving Inclusion in Scottish Schools (Her Majestys Inspectorate of Education (HMIE), 2003) was one of the forthcoming documents to have a different perspective. The report stressed the prominence of inclusion being a key priority within Scottish education. Throughout the report, suggestions are given to teachers on how to approach inclusion and features of what makes an inclusive school are stated. One feature focuses on providing an inclusive curriculum for all children using the support from services and outer agencies to help enhance learning. Both Cline and Frederickson (2009) also believe this is a significant factor in developing an inclusive school. The Scottish curriculum, Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) (Scottish Government, 2007) caters for children aged from three to eighteen and provides a smooth and seamless transition from sector to sector. Every sector use the same curriculum which not only is inclusive for children but also for staff as this is maintai ned right through to secondary school. Those who are involved in childrens learning collaborate effectively ensuring previous learning is built upon, making transition and learning as inclusive as possible (Scottish Government, 2007). This links with the principle coherence of CfE (Scottish Government, 2007) which stresses the importance of learning being clearly connected and developed from previous experiences. Reeves and Fox (2008) however, disagree with the curriculum being inclusive in this sense as they say that it is school practices that influence teachers attitudes. If schools disregard collaborative approaches as an effective step to successful transition then they will take no pride in doing so, which results in the curriculum being far from inclusive. Having awareness of the benefits, I will endeavour to cooperate with other professionals to make childrens transitions as efficient as possible.

Cox container case Essay

Problem Identification: There are quite a good number of problems in the case of CCC, among of which one can define, are the following: 1- Job security for the ethnic minorities who run the workshop for years, while being empowered in the age of Harold Cox, they felt threatened by the introduction of the new management system, that was reflected by the defensive attitude of Aziz and his lack of cooperation which also can be the reaction of being marginalized by Wilson while conducting the company review. 2- Lack of managerial training, which was reflected on how Aziz perceives his job as a shop floor manager whose first and utmost concern, is to deliver production no matter what the outside environment is. 3- Market introduction of new competitors, which dictates the need of full review of the operations, budgeting, supply chain and labor competency. Hence introducing more bureaucracy to the current system and might limit the power of Aziz and his team. 4- The centralization and individuality of Harold Cox in running the company helped the creation of a divisionalized structure and culture as well as developing a high degree of autonomy in the production department and a shallow hierarchy especially in the financial and management accounting area. Analysis: The main reason why Cox asked Wilson to conduct a company review is to get the company moving forward, such an act could have been shared with department managers, despite Wilson’s conclusions, strategies must be compromises that allow the company to move forward (Johnson, 1992). Johnson also argued that Strategic drift takes many years to affect performance, which validates the happening of the falling results of CCC, such a performance made Cox ask Wilson to conduct the review. The resistance to change that Aziz showed can be explained via the framework of Herzberg (1987) at which he argued that job security, as part of the hygiene factors can be a source of job satisfaction and motivation. Despite belittling the effect of hygiene factors on the subject, he did not address such an issue â€Å"job security† on a minority member. Such a factor can be more important than others whether intrinsic or extrinsic since minority members would possess the feeling of fear of losing their jobs and being expelled by the society and not finding another job. Adding the job status of Aziz would add further complexities to the situation as well. The introduction of budgeting and operation optimization without consulting the shop floor manager while he represents the core business of the company could have affected his motivation. These new systems would influence the type of the work that can be done in the shop floor greatly and would change Aziz from a decision maker in his part with all the autonomy and credibility he has to just a regular employee that manages what the new system dictates. Such change would affect Aziz’s motivation to contribute to the new system as discussed by Leavitt (2007). Leavitt argues that the increased bureaucracy and the rigid system turns employees into machines performing the work without thinking, and that would be against the human nature that tends to think and innovate. He also argues that the introduction of IT systems and technologies would be harmful to humans in the work place especially if companies abuse them. He however managed to argue the point from the employee point of view without mentioning the companies perspective at which standardization and new technologies raises the efficiency and performance of the companies and can allocate resources to new departments or new functions. If Aziz were opting the same perspective as   without having the picture cleared that this new system (budgeting and operations review) would benefit him as well as the company, he would tend to resist that change. In the framework of Herzberg (1987), job participation is one of the important myths to job or task enrichment. He emphasizes that giving the employees the big picture and giving them a feeling that they will determine in some measure what they will do in the job; would not be beneficial to the job. Wilson, Straw, Long and Pedder managed to do exactly this part. It would be against Aziz’s benefit if he would resist correcting the situation of the company. He would seem wrong and would hurt himself and his career in CCC if he was explained the current situation and the competitive market condition and how is that affecting CCC and what are the measures needed in the next few weeks / years to correct the competitiveness of CCC. Aziz should have been offered the chance to contribute to the budgeting and even could have been appointed a task in suggesting the best production and budgeting scheme that would save the company time and money. Bassett-Jones & Lloyed (2005) negated the approach of Herzberg and emphasized on the importance of employee’s contribution to the job in order to grant satisfaction. By seeing their ideas being implemented without delays and with the approval of the manager that this idea will contribute to the best of the company, the employee will have a sense of ownership and commitment towards making the idea work. Ford, Ford, & D’Amelio (2008) stated that the resistance to change can be the cause of the management’s actions themselves as they fail to develop trust. They failed to argue that in some cases, the employee(s) have their own agenda and they (employees) are the ones to trigger the resistance. The centralization of the decision making in CCC allowed the formation of a divisional company organization where Aziz’s team form the major part of it. Having this high autonomy formed a specific organization culture perhaps that Aziz is indispensible and hence he is in control. Such a culture would cause Aziz to be reluctant to accept changes specially after CCC lost some of its competitiveness in the market for few years and yet no complain from  Cox and/or the management. Meyers & Martin (1987) suggest that as the organization structure form the organization’s culture and beliefs, so does the leaders of the company. It can be noticed that Cox influenced the idea that the minorities in his company are indispensible, since they support him politically and socially because of their existence in CCC. It can also be noticed that Cox did the interactions with Aziz and the production team on a personal level and hence when changes were mandatory, Aziz opposed it because it did not come from Cox himself and such resistance will not be punished by Cox. It also can be noticed the degree of autonomy in the company when the budgeting scheme is needed, each manager submitted an estimate of expenditure not the actual amount spent the year before or the required budget needed based on the previous year expenditure and the business forecast for next year. The shallow pyramid of hierarchy especially in the management accounting and financial can explain such autonomy. The creation of the subgroup and hence the subculture allowed the lobbying in the production department to happen and to resist any change as long as it is not in their direct favor. Such collectiveness behavior was developed by the centralization of decision making by Cox and the high degree of autonomy he allowed for such a group. In his study, Polzer (2004) has concluded that subgroups and subcultures in organizations tend to have harmful effect on collective welfare that extends beyond the boundaries of this individualistic subgroup. In CCC case, if the production department’s employees feel threatened; they can trigger actions to stop that threat, such as calling for a strike or threating to collectively resign and hence hurt the company by stopping the production. They are well aware that hiring such a large number of employees in a short time will be deemed impossible especially with all the experience they have. Even if the job has high degree of analyzability and does not require specialists to perform it. Moreover, collective resignation would hurt the image of the company and would cause business to be lost to competition even if it is on a temporarily basis. Perhaps what triggered that defensive mechanism with this subgroup is the introduction of the outsiders even if they were completely in a different  department. As proposed by Johnson (1992), introducing outsiders can help in managing the change since the outsider shall have a fresh view of the organization or the department that is undergoing the change. However, he did not mention how that would affect the change recipients themselves and how far would they accept the outsider. He also did not identify if the outsider came from inside the organization (i.e. internal transfer) or from outside the organization and what difference would that make. Alternatives: So, what would CCC management do to resolve the current situation? 1. Do Nothing. The benefits of calming down the current situation and the production department are to ensure the company is kept in operation. Although margins are dropping, the company is sill profitable. However, the disadvantages of this situation are more than its advantages. The operation department will tend to increase its power and influence on the company since now they felt powerful and indispensible, also, they might try to find another alternative or group together and establish another competing company and resign collectively which would put the company out of business. 2. Use a sacrifition sheep: Firing Aziz and the seniors in the production department and replacing them with other seniors from inside the department can be a solution to send a clear message to the rest of the crew that the change is happening regardless of the opposition. This can benefit CCC by establishing a clear strategy that the company is moving forward with the change and personnel have to choose. However, if it backfires, the company can lose too much and we can revert back to the scenario in solution No.1. 3. Driving changes smoothly and in the welfare of the production department: There is no doubt that political consideration has a major play in such situations and it can resolve lots of issues. By calling Aziz and the seniors in the department and explaining the change to them and how would introducing new budgeting system and/or new operation schemes would benefit the company as a whole and the department specifically; they would tend to comply with that change. Asking for their assistance would be a better solution than resisting the resistance. The situation can be transformed to the benefit of CCC if the production department personnel understand the current challenge and start to challenge the status quo themselves, knowing that what will be done will be reflected on their welfare. By adopting the DICE methodology explained by Sirkin & Jackson (2005) to drive the changes as follow: I. Set the Duration of the transformation process with clear and concise milestones. Milestones keep goals tracked and in prospective, encouraging everyone to participate by some sort of recognition would help the process. II. Identify the required personnel and allocate tasks according to their capabilities and traits. That would keep the project Integrity intact and minimizes the risk of duration slippage and/or wrong interpretation of tasks and their requirements. III. Management participation and Commitment to the project as well as employees affected by the change. Management as well should demonstrate how these changes are going to change the welfare of employees and how committed they are to doing so. IV. It should be clarified that each and everyone concerned with this change process should be expected to exert an extra Effort until the transformation is completed. The manage ment should lead by example in this regard and make it clear that any extra effort exerted in this period shall be rewarded on both the long and short term. Recommendations: It is recommended to follow resolution No.3 above, since CCC is considered an SME not a corporate and since they are bound to the acceptance of the strongest department to change. Moreover, this resolution addressed the concerns discussed in the study above which mainly are the job security, motivation, job enrichment of the employees while helping in changing the company culture on the long run by getting the employees to exert extra effort and see their ideas come to live, that would develop a sense of belonging to the company which will benefit the company on the long run. Also, that approach would strengthen the concept that the company is willing to accommodate their employees and work out the changes with them for the best interest of both parties. Plan of actions: Harold Cox, Erica Wilson along with all the company seniors should demonstrate participation and ownership of the change process. It was not a  good idea to leave the interaction being led by the new appointee(s) considering the company culture. The involvement of the top management whose faces are familiar with the production team would ease the effect of the change and indicate that the change are being driven from within not that the outsiders are taking over the company. Depending on the change required; the process duration should be set. Would the management desire only a cost control and lean operations concepts to be implemented or they would require production enhancements by increasing the throughput of the company? Would they procure new technology, which would require training, installation and production scheme change? Would they introduce differentiation either horizontally or vertically to the current products? The easiest change to start with is to introduce cost control and operation optimization associated with achieving the minimum efficient scale of the factory and then drives another change. Driving a major change at once would again be resisted. Mainly the production department would be affected, other departments too, such as financial and management accounting. The latters would be expected to drive the major portion of cost control through supply chain optimization. Introducing operations management department would also help enhancing the operations of the whole company and helping the company to slim the inefficient operations in all departments. It would be expected that some side effects such as additional expenses would follow as sort of rewards to the contributors in the change process to encourage the participation. Also, production lag would occur until the change process is finalized, that could be due to shop floor adjustments or personnel getting accustomed to the new change in the production process, hence, it would be a good idea if the company could produce some reserve capacity to cover this aspect. Bibliography Bassett-Jones, N., & Lloyed, G. C. (2005). Does Herzberg’s motivation theory have staying power? Journal of management development , 24 (10). Ford, J. D., Ford, L. W., & D’Amelio, A. (2008). Resistance t change: The rest of the story. The academey of management review , 33 (2), 362-377. Herzberg, F. (1987, September). One more time: How do you motivate employees? Harvard Business Review . Johnson, G. (1992). Managing strategic change – strategy, culture and action. Long Range Planning , 25 (1), 28-36. Leavitt, H. J. (2007). Big organizations are unhealthy environment for human beings. Academy of management learning & education , 6 (2), 253-263. Meyers, D., & Martin, J. (1987). CULTURAL CHANGE: AN INTEGRATION OF THREE DIFFERENT VIEWS. journal of Management Studies , 24 (6), 623-647. Polzer, J. T. (2004). How Subgroup Interests and Reputations Moderate the Effect of Organizational Identification on Cooperation . Journal of Management , 30, 71-96. Sirkin, H. L., & Jackson, A. (2005, October). The hard side of change management. Harvard Business Review , 33-47.

Political Correctness Essay

From the time man developed his ability to interact with other people using the speech code, his work became more intensified and his job became more highlighted as it was not easy to communicate with each other and still be left ‘politically correct’. The term ‘politically correct’ was meant to be used to filter out humiliating words and it was a concept that was brought in to be more palpable and social in this world. Like every good concept in the world, being politically correct is also applied in the work place scenario. The applying of the statement of being ‘politically correct’ depends on by what intent it is used for while working in offices or be it educational institutes. The intent behind the usage of the term was to manifest a certain amount of diplomacy and tactfulness when it came to criticizing a colleague in mortifying terms. It was only a way in which things can be put up against the use of words that would degrade another person. However, as seen in most work places, people work with zero tolerance levels and are ready to snap at each other on a pin’s drop, completely misuse the political correctness scenario, and ultimately the entire purpose for which it was brought in to the world gets dampened, as the term becomes high in use for those people who actually want to humiliate and degrade other people. The high bullying of the term can be assessed by the following: ‘But despite political correctness, discrimination against minorities and the powerless, still flourish globally. We are not more civilized – in fact, we are slipping into anarchy and we are living in a violent world and people who are at ease with themselves, in touch with themselves and accepting of all people, use the politically incorrect terms to refer to themselves. The abuse of political correctness is in essence dishonesty and it ignores the consultative process and very often those who are affected (like the visually impaired), and because we are not at ease with the New Terminology, it is often the object of jokes – clearly indicating that political correctness causes tension within ourselves’. (Dr. Susan Steinman, â€Å"Politically correct – the smokescreen by which bullying thrives†. Retrieved on April 13, 2008 from site http://www.worktrauma.org/change/politically_correct.htm) When misused, political correctness becomes harsher and makes an employee working in an organization feel much suffocated. The concept of the term is probably to say the word in a much better way, for instance the word African American over the words black people. Here the point is getting across of defining a sect of people without being racially abusive towards them. But employees might face racism worse by using political correct statement i.e. by stressing on the word African than American, as to signify the existence from a different continent. This kind of unwarranted political correctness is harmful and can lead to major hindrances in communication and would scar a colleague emotionally on terms of being abused either racially or by the way one has knowledge or even by the way one looks. Another way in the office people with wrong intentions can have hindrance in effective communication is by acting perky and snobby when using these politically correct terms and ultimately it would widen the gaps between office colleagues and subordinates on the line of being snooty and insensitive. Communication is a major asset of the working environment in an office. If it is tampered with on the grounds of political correctness, it would only lead to miscommunication and differences between people working, thus hurting everybody who would be in accord to it. Reference: 1) Dr. Susan Steinman, â€Å"Politically correct – the smokescreen by which bullying thrives†. http://www.worktrauma.org/change/politically_correct.htm 2) http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/174790/how_to_be_politically_correct_in_the.html

Effects of Parental Alcoholism and Children Free Essay Example, 5000 words

Studies show that children of Alcoholics (COAs) do suffer a lot of negative consequences there are other studies that suggest that many children do not experience serious problems due to parental alcohol abuse. In a longitudinal study conducted on the island of Kauai involving COAs born there, Werner reported that although 41% of the children developed serious coping problems by 18 years of age, 59% did not develop problems. ; 1986) According to him, these children possessed great resilient characteristics that included having the ability to gain positive attention from other people in their environment, good communication skills, a burning desire to achieve though with average intelligence and an attitude of caring and depending on self help. Our study is going to examine those areas of parental alcohol abuse in close relation of the adverse effects it has on children where their growth and development is concerned. Alcohol abuse has a drastic effect on the child even while it is a fetus in the mother s womb and harms the child adversely by damaging the growth of the cells in the fetus. We will write a custom essay sample on Effects of Parental Alcoholism and Children or any topic specifically for you Only $17.96 $11.86/page No studies have proved that it is safe for pregnant mothers to drink. On the other hand studies in research have proved that alcohol drinking by pregnant mothers have affected their babies in different ways and sometimes even beyond repair. It is highly recommended that parental drinking, especially during pregnancy, should be avoided at all costs to avoid its worst effects.