Professional Standards and Fitness to Practise in teaching: issues for students and staff Elisabet Weedon Centre for Research in Education Inclusion and Diversity University of Edinburgh

Focus on: DRC investigation into Fitness to Practise Students’ experiences in relation to ‘fitness to practise’: at university and on placement The views of academic staff The views (as reported by the students) of staff in placement schools

Disability, fitness to practise and disclosure of disability DRC – formal investigation into fitness to practise standards (autumn 2007) Medicine and social work professional bodies operate fitness standards; teaching in England (medical) does but not in Scotland Disclosure discrepancies: 3% of education students in Scotland disclose disability; but there are only around 1% of disabled teachers in the workforce

Case studies: 4 students Jean: dyslexia Andrew: cerebral palsy Both successfully completed and started probation Dionne: Hidden impairment (Crohn’s disease Lesley: Multiple impairments: hearing and mobility Have not yet completed

Reasonable adjustments at university DSA which provided computer and IT support for all but Dionne Extra time in exams In principle they could ask for extensions to coursework but did not use it Dionne found departmental staff helpful and supportive

Work placement: main issues Disclosure and (lack of) guidance on disclosure (Jean) Attitude of school/individual teachers to disability (Jean and Andrew) Support and understanding of physical access (Lesley) None for Dionne – individual teacher accommodated to her requirements

Work placement: Lesley The council unfortunately does not make a distinction between an actually level school and one that has a lift. So they had me down as being in a level school but when I went there I was in an upstairs classroom and I was responsible for taking the children up and down the stairs … I couldn’t do that … They said they would cover … they never turned up

Work placement: Dionne When I’ve been poorly, I’ve just got in touch with uni and they’ve sorted it …that’s really my only lifeline and … the teacher I just worked with, we’re really good friends now … so, she knows about it, and we sort of sort things out around… so if I went in one day, and I wasn’t feeling very well, she’d be like: ‘well how about, I teach first thing, you can get yourself up and sort of get ready’. So she was pretty accommodating

Fitness to practise? Typical academic perspective - unease But I am not sure what they would do about anybody that was deaf or … in a wheelchair, would they be able to manage a class … I suppose there are obviously things like epileptics can’t become teachers … AND I find it hard to see how people with severe dyslexia could be teachers … (Academic Inst. D)

Fitness to practise? Untypical academic perspective I think there is a real issue because there is a public conception of what a teacher is. It is not somebody in a wheelchair and it is not somebody with a visual impairment and it is not somebody who can’t hear … [the public perception is] our teachers should be clever, our teachers should be able to spell … (Academic Inst. A)

Impact of legislation (driven by disability as a political category) Universities responded by taking positive actionBUT Staff within universities do not necessarily accept this interpretation – or lack awareness and understanding of the impact of different impairments

Disclosure: to disclose or not … Hidden impairments present particular problem for students Students generally do not want to be classed as disabled – but have to in order to gain reasonable adjustments Setting impacts on disclosure: There are approx 3% of students on ITA courses that have disclosed a disability; only approx 1% of teachers disclose a disability …

To summarise: The notion of ‘fitness to practise’ has been discarded as anachronistic and discriminatory; however, it clearly continues to exist in people’s minds, reinforcing the idea of disability as individual deficit and the disabled individual as unworthy of full social inclusion