Research Papers / LSM Portfolio: English Legal System Seminars and Reflection Question [2]

My teacher is saying I haven't used seminar questions. I did work very hard on it. Could someone with a law background have a look at my portfolio and give some advice where should I improve? Thanks.

Portfolio: English Legal System Seminars and Reflection Question

Name
University
Course
Date
Table of Cases
British Railways Board v Herrington [1972] AC 877.
Duport Steels Ltd v Sirs [1980] 1 All ER 529.
Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394.
London Tramways Co. v London County Council [1898] AC 375.
MPC v Caldwell [1982] AC 341.
Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent) [1966] 3 All ER 77.
R v Allen [1872] LR 1 CCR 367.
R v G and Another [2004] AC 1034.
R v Howell [1982] QB 416.
R v (Laporte) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Police [2007] 2 AC 105.
R v R [1991] UKHL 12.
Re Sigsworth [1935] 1 Ch 98.
Rex v Taylor [1950] 2 KB 268.
Royal College of Nursing v DHSS [1981] 2 WLR 279.
Smith v Hughes [1960] 1 WLR 830.
Sussex Peerage Case [1844] 11 CI& Fin 85.

Table of Statutes
Abortion Act 1967.
Administration of Justice Act 1925.
Equality Act 2010.
European Communities Act 1972.
European Convention on Human Rights, 1950.
Freedom of Information Act 2000.
Human Rights Act 1998.
Justice and Security Act 2013.
Offences Against the Persons Act 1861.
Protection of Freedoms Act 2012.
Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959.
Street Offences Act 1959.

Cases and Theories
Introduction
Theoretically, the ordering of society is accomplished through the implementation and enforcement of law. Within the English legal system law is not simply enacted and enforced through law enforcement. While law enforcement may make an arrest based on a statutory provision, the statutory basis for the arrest will almost, always eventually end up before the judiciary for interpretation and enforcement. In other words, the administration of justice within the English legal system is complex and requires the cooperation of actors. The ordering of society therefore depends on the implementation, interpretation, application and enforcement of laws. Theorists such as Austin, Hart, and Dworkin assume that these factors can only take place if certain conditions are met. One of the main theoretical contentions is that laws must exist with punishment for breach of those laws in order for rational citizens to make the decision to voluntarily cooperate and obey the laws. This section discusses some of the important theories and cases. Of particular importance are the doctrine of judicial precedent, statutory interpretation and the role of law in the ordering of society. These three areas are selected because they come together to achieve the ordering of society.

The Formalist vs the Positivist Theory
The formalist theory holds that judges can and do make new law and this is consistent with Hart's views. Judge's make new laws through creativity and innovation in interpreting statutes or when deciding to exercise authority in the departure from a precedent. Indeed there is confirmation in Rex v Taylor [1950] 2 KB 268 where it was held that implicit in the judge's discretion was the discretionary authority to go against a precedent that was binding on the court.

Dworkin, took the positivist approach holding that judges do not make new law and in instances where they may come to the conclusion that a legislative provision is not complete, that would be a 'discovery' as opposed to a new law. Dworkin was of the opinion that if judges were free to make laws, that power would be removed immediately. Lord Scarman appears to agree with Dworkin's positivist view as he stated in Duport Steels Ltd v Sirs [1980] 1 All ER 521, if there was a perception among the public that judges were free to make and break laws based on discretionary powers, there would be a degree of panic and pressure would be put on Parliament to put a stop to or at the very least constrain the authority of the judiciary. However, as Galeza states, 'sometimes judges hypocritically support their wide discretion in the adjudication, which justifies Hart's theory.'

Arguably this occurred in the case of Royal College of Nursing v Department of Health and Social Security (see table and discussion in the next section of this portfolio). In Lord Diplock's discussion and interpretation of the Abortion Act 1967, he claimed that in attempting to prevent basement abortions, Parliament delegated abortion authority to medical practitioners only and this included nurses. Galeza suggests that there was nothing in the Abortion Act 1967 to suggest that nurses were medical practitioners with the know-how to carry out safe abortions without the intervention and assistance of a medical doctor.

Austin's Command Theory
John Austin argued in this book The Province of Jurisprudence that law was different from other rules since it was under the 'command of a sovereign body,' enabling the sovereign to 'enforce by means of punishment'. Sovereigns differ from one country to the next. In Great Britain, the Queen 'in Parliament' is the sovereign while in other states the sitting monarch holds all of the sovereign power. Still in other states, the sovereign may be a President.

When we look at criminal law, Austin's command theory carries significant weight. Under the criminal law, rules and regulations exist under statute and the common law dictating conduct and describing what is misconduct or specifically what is criminal conduct and where there is non-compliance, there are punitive remedies including penal fines or imprisonment. Still there are areas of law where the command theory cannot be supported. For instance, contract law provides penalties where a contract is breached, but there is not authority under law that can 'command us to make contracts in the first place.'

Likewise, family law does not order citizens to get married, but it does set out a set of rules and regulations for the dissolution of marriage and the division of marital property and custody of minor children of the marriage. As Elliott and Quinn state:

The rules about marriage and contracts could be described as rules giving power, in contrast to the rules imposing duties which comprise criminal law; they have different functions, but both types are legal rules.

This brings us back to Hart who theorized that there are a significant number of laws and rules that do not command action or inaction nor 'impose sanctions'. Laws are complex and dynamic and consist of any number of rules that renders it 'impossible to cover them all with the proposition that laws are commands.'

Dworkin's Constructive Interpretation Theory
Dworkin argued that judges are a part of the human community and as such they must assume that they are community entities and should reflect what the community perceives as just and fair. Law only has integrity if it promotes fairness and justice together with 'procedural due process, which provide the best constructive interpretation of the community's legal practice'. The integrity of the law is achieved through the law speaking 'with one voice'. This means that the judiciary must take the position that the law is 'structured on coherent principles about justice, fairness and procedural due process' and when judges are dealing with cases they must do everything within their power to ensure that the same sets of 'standards' are applied to each and every case so that fairness is extended to all. In other words, everyone who comes before the court must be assured of and receive equal treatment under the law. This applies to those who simply come into contact with the law as well.

Integrity of the law is achieved through the legislative and judicial processes. Thus legislators have an inherent duty to exert their efforts in ensuring that the law they enact is 'coherent' and on a moral basis. It is only after legislators produce what appears to be a morally coherent law, that judges are able to step in and carry the statute from there. In other words, although the legislators and judges are different arms of the political process and the running of the state, they have to cooperate and cull together resources that recognize and aim to accomplish a common course: the administration of justice fairly, and for the ordering of society.

According to Dworkin, constructive interpretation of the legal process is a precursor for a theory of adjudication. Constructive interpretation consists of three evaluative phases. The first phase is the pre-interpretive phase, the second phase is interpretive and the third phase is post-interpretive. At the pre-interpretive phase, the regulations and standards that make up the practice of law are identified. At the interpretive phase, the factors that were identified at the pre-interpretive phase are justified. At the post-interpretive phase, the actual needs of the practice are identified in terms of what was justified at the interpretive phase.

The interpretive phase is the most important phase as this is the point where what is proposes is 'consistent with the data identified as constituting the practice' at the pre-interpretive phase' and a 'justification' must be selected that is appropriate the best option. In other words, the judge must ensure that the decision made at the conclusion of a case is not only conducive to the facts of the case, but is consistent with previous rulings so that the court itself is demonstratively efficient, consistent and can be characterized as a having integrity.

Law and Social Ordering
Introduction
Law plays a multi-faceted role in the ordering of society. The role of law can be divided into two broad categories: macro functions and micro functions. Macro functions refer to those areas of law that are designed to deal with the managing and "ordering of society" generally. Micro functions refer to those "specific uses to which law is put" and are derived from macro functions. There are essentially six macro functions of law and they are, public order, political order, social order, economic order, international order and moral order. Micro functions include a number of laws that are designed to carry out the macro functions of the law and these include defining and sanctioning what amounts to "unacceptable behavior", limiting the powers of government, and assigning regulatory power to government agencies among others. In answering the reflective question above, this essay is divided into two broad parts. The first part of this essay discusses the macro functions of the law in ordering society and the second part of this essay discusses the micro functions of the law in ordering society.

Macro Functions of the Law in Ordering of Society
Public Order
Public order is often used to refer to the "Queen's peace" which means the maintenance of peace and the fluid flow of co-existence that represents a "normal state of society" and disruptions of this peace is a breach of what should be expected of a civilized society This understanding of public order can best be understood by an examination of what amounts to a breach of peace. In this regard, come guidance can be derived from R v Howell in which a breach of peace was defined as:

...whenever harm is actually done or is likely to be done to a person or in his presence to his property or a person is in fear of being so harmed through an assault, an affray, a riot, unlawful assembly or other disturbance.

The House of Lords confirmed this definition of a breach of peace in R v (Laporte) v Chief Constable of Gloucestershire Police. What can be concluded is that a breach of the Queen's peace can take place without an actual breach of peace occurring. It can occur if the threat to breach the peace exists.

According to Partington, the main way that order is maintained within the English legal system is through a system of civil liberties and boundaries that establish what is acceptable conduct and what are the consequences of unacceptable conduct. Civil liberties are defined by the Human Rights Act 1998 which in turn adopts and directly applies the European Convention on Human Rights 1950. Essentially, the protection of civil liberties within the parameters of the European Convention on Human Rights include the freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, the right to life, a prohibition against torture, the right to a fair trial within a reasonable time, the right to due process and so on. These rights are not altogether absolute in that in the exercise of these freedoms and obligations, the deliberate encroachment of others' rights can amount to a breach of peace and therefore disrupt public order. For example, in the exercise of free speech, one might commit a hate crime by willfully inciting disaffection in racial or religious discrimination.

Public order is also maintained through the balancing of government powers against the freedoms of the private citizen. This is normally carried out in the interest of national security. For example, through the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 the state's interests in preventing, detecting and prosecuting acts of terrorism are balanced against the individual's right to freedom with respect to the expansion of detention powers to a period of 2 weeks. The Justice and Security Act 2013 also permits a closed trial in instances where it would be a threat to national security should some sensitive information be revealed in public. As can be gleaned from the discussion in this section, the protection of public order is not straight forward and involves the balancing of a number of interests including the human rights of private citizens, national security and more importantly, maintaining the Queen's peace.

Political Order
According to Cerar, the idea that law and order is distinguished from politics is erroneous. Politics is a regulated phenomenon, and consist of institutions, some of which are enshrined in public administration and constitutional laws. Constitutional laws are embodied in a Constitution which is the laws and rules that regulate and establish the entire governmental system. Virtually all democratic countries have a written Constitution. However, Great Britain is not one of those countries. Although Britain does not have a written constitution, its constitution is embodied in convention and laws.

The constitution of the UK is embodied in a number of laws and documented by a number of arrangements. For example, the UK is a member state to the European Union and until such time as it formally leaves, is bound by the European Communities Act 1972 as amended, which limits the sovereignty of the UK's Parliament. By virtue of the European Communities Act 1972, the UK is bound by the treaties of the European Union 'without further enactment'. The 1972 Act therefore functions to 'limit' the 'legislative power' of the 'British Parliament'. The Human Rights Act 1998 also provides a constitutional framework for the incorporation of human rights protection and provides boundaries and limitations of government power over private citizens and private property. The Human Rights Act 1998 accomplishes this political order through the adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights, 1950.

Other constitutional acts are the Scotland and Wales Acts of 1998 which transfer powers from the English Parliament to the Welsh Assembly and the Scottish Parliament. The 1998 Acts serve to chart a legal regime for regulating the governments of England, Scotland and Wales. Another statute contributing to the political order and forming a constitution is the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The 2000 Act essentially establishes the right of the public to access to publicly held information and establishes which information is official secrets and therefore not subject to the free access rule. The 2000 Act also sets out the roles and duties of the Secretary of State, the Lord Chancellor and Information Commissioner in the management of information held by public agencies.

There are many more statutes that regulate the government's power and its relationship with citizens. While it may have been more efficient to place these various statutes describing the governments powers and limitations in one Constitution, it allows for a structure in which government powers and limitations can be altered more efficiently through statutory amendments, appeals or implementation. Under a constitution, changes would have to be made through referendum which takes a lot more time.

Social Order
Legal systems achieve social order when they function to promote and secure a mutual advantage. When the Paretian principle which is derived from Pareto economics, is applied, a mutual advantage refers to policies that 'benefits some and harms none'. According to Hardin, a 'legal system serves mutual advantage if, ex ante, it secures social order and the opportunity for prosperity'. Thomas Hobbes was of the opinion that order was achieved through the will and deliberate exercise of power by the sovereign. David Hume however argued that while the sovereign was required to accomplish order, social order could be accomplished through "spontaneous coordination' and based on tradition.

It is important to note that although Hobbes and Hume appeared to disagree on the intricacies of social order, they did agree that the sovereign played a significant role in accomplishing social order. It is without doubt that legal systems which is an arm of the sovereign state, is a pivotal part of social order. As Hardin points out, are "commonly quite specific" and "is often backed by powerful sanctions that make us comply with it." As Hardin reminds us, a legal system does not exist in a vacuum. It must be created and this is where the sovereign state comes in. Legal systems are created and maintained by the sovereign state. It is within these legal systems that law operates to issue rules for social order and penalties for abridging social order rules.

Social order is not always about rules that are aimed at directing moral and ethical choices to safeguard against disorder in society. Social order also refers to the ordering of society. In Western democracies there are diverse people of different races, genders, sexualities, ages, nationalities, ethnicities and so on. In addition, there are diverse social statuses with individuals and groups ranging from abject poverty to excessive wealth. Both civil and criminal law appear to advance a social order that protects the wealthier from the poor as these laws tend to be vested in the protection of property rights.

When we look more closely at the law we can agree with Hardin that the law is designed to maintain social order by creating a mutual advantage that maintains social order and at the same time facilitates opportunities for all to be prosperous. In the UK, this view of social order is achieved through the Equality Act 2010. While the primary aim of the 2010 Act is to ensure equal treatment of all before the law and to prevent discriminatory treatment on the basis of race, nationality, sexuality, gender, disability, ethnicity, religion and so on, the Act also provides for special treatment of the economically disadvantaged. Specifically, Section 1(1) of the Equality Act 2010 provides that:

An authority to which this section applies must, when making decisions of a strategic nature about how to exercise its functions, have due regard to the desirability of exercising them in a way that is designed to reduce the inequalities of outcome which result from socio-economic disadvantage.

Thus, according to Partington, the law is designed to create and maintain social order by facilitating the legal framework that makes it possible for 'social, welfare, and educational policy making' that 'seeks to assist in the promotion of a new social order'. Partington argues that while law attempts to create a new social order through equality, non-discrimination and greater assistance to the disadvantaged, law still protects property rights and in doing so, supports and promotes the current social order.

Economic Order
The role of law in the establishing and maintaining of economic order is vastly similar to the role that law plays in social order. The economic order in the UK and the remainder of the Western world is based on capitalists' concepts. Capitalism is structured around the belief that private property ownership creates 'legally enforceable rights' and this includes rights in real or personal property. Law creates and protects economic order by prescribing how those property rights are acquired, how they are transferred, how they are earned, how ownership is defined, and taxed.

The law establishes and promotes economic order through the recognition and application of the law of contracts. As Partington puts it:
Recognition of the legally enforceable bargain (contract), breaches of which can be litigated in the courts, has been an essential tool in the development of the modern market capitalist economy.

Still, law also recognizes that contracts can involve inequality of bargaining power and thus this can render the economically weaker party exploitable by the economically stronger party. Thus laws are designed to ensure greater equality of bargaining power and the main purpose of these laws are to protect the weaker consumer from the greed of the stronger corporate giant.

International Order

The law plays a significant role in the international order. In this regard, international law consists of international convention, treaties, and customary law. Customary law is the laws of nations that are shared with one another. Treaties and conventions are international instruments to which membership imposes contractual relations between states that regulate international commerce, international trade, tort involving foreign elements, human rights, international crime such as human trafficking or illicit trade, and so on. Many of these instruments result in model laws that are ratified by member states and become a part of national law.

Although many of these international instruments are unenforceable internationally, they are generally obeyed. Unlike other legal systems, the international legal system is not a 'single, coherent practice or institution'. Rather, international law is a 'miscellaneous aggregate of rules, principles, ideals, procedures, policies, decisions, commands, recommendations, agreements, customs, precedents, and other normative elements.' As a result, it is difficult to conceptualize international law in terms of identifying and defining what international law is. Yet, at the same time, international law is decidedly an 'unambiguous and coherent conception of international order' organized around an 'international society' which is subject to a constitution 'regulated by a common body of non-instrumental laws'.

Within these parameters, states perceive themselves as a part of this international system or society and subject to shared concepts of international law. Specifically, customary international law and the UN Charter recognize the autonomy and independence of nation states. Therefore, while not specifically bound by a central legal authority, states are minded to obey international law because it is the same law that upholds their autonomy and independence. What occurs is a legal climate that is fortified by 'mutual respect'. While there is no guarantee that states will not use aggression, the international legal system establishes a legal order in which it is unlikely to occur or at least it is limited to a comfortable degree.

Moral Order
According to Hart, law plays a significant role in establishing and enforcing moral order. Hart gave two reasons. First, law is informed by morals. Secondly, morals are derived from law. Therefore, law and morals are intricately intertwined to the extent that law is a reflection of morals and law establishes moral standards. This is an important observation because law therefore functions to regulate the moral order.

Hall and Tunick explains the role of law in moral order. According to Hall and Tunick, many people would simply refuse to act in certain ways simply because the action would be immoral. Other people however, would require knowledge that a certain immoral act would result in some form of penalty. Laws are accompanied by punishment or 'damage awards, executed after a judicial determination according to procedures laid out by an authorative governing body'. Morals on the other hand, have no such enforcement regiment and instead, rely on 'individual conscience, social pressure, or perhaps the fear of God.' Law is necessary for establishing and maintaining the moral order as there are members of society who do not have the conscience nor the fear of God nor the fear of social pressure to observe and respect morals.

Micro Functions of the Law in Ordering Society
As previously noted, the micro functions of law in the ordering of society are derived from the macro functions and to this end the micro functions are more specific. Partington gives a number of examples of the micro functions of law and begins by explaining that some behaviours are unacceptable, but not always the subject of legal bans. For example, it is perfectly legal to get intoxicated after you have reached the age of 18. This may be unacceptable behaviour but not a crime. However, where an individual 18 years of age or older drives while intoxicated, the behaviour is not only unacceptable, but it is against the law. The law therefeore establishes boundaries around unacceptable behavior when it gets to a point where the life, limb and property of others are at risk of injury due to the unacceptable behaviour of another or others.

The criminal law therefore establishes boundaries and consequences for unacceptable behaviour and in doing so establishes and maintains order. However, as Partington cautions, criminal law is not the only branch of law that functions to establish and limit unacceptable behaviour. Civil law performs the same function. For instance, when a contract is contravened by one of the contractual parties, the aggrieved party may seek remedial action or damages from the court. Similarly, criminal law defines unacceptable behaviour and establishes punishments for that behaviour.

Conclusion
As this particular essay reveals there are a lot of factions in society that require order. Without order, there would be chaos or a purely uncivilized society. Law makes it possible to achieve order in society, the international arena, the economy, politics, and so on. Each of these factions of society are interconnected. When we look beyond the mere definition of each faction we can see a connection. For example, the economic order is an important place for testing morals and individual judgment. If we remove the law the regulations that call for the exchange of bargains, performance and consideration, we would be left with economic arrangements where the weak are exploited by the poor. This is not a mutual advantage as it benefits one person and harms another. We therefore risk ending up with a society in which opportunities for prosperity are for the stronger citizens to the complete detriment of the weaker citizen. This can lead to resentment, social unrest and tensions that can only end in revolution and other forms of disorder.

As it, laws that protect private property are looked upon as fair when everyone has an equal opportunity to gain access to private property and to become prosperous. If you remove the equal opportunity, you have citizens questioning why they should be loyal to a law that benefits some and harms others. The political order installs a system of justice and law and order that is fair and seeks to achieve a mutual advantage for citizens. A fair and impartial judiciary is a part of that political order. In other words, all factions are part and parcel of the same order and where they function together to achieve a mutual advantage, citizens are more likely to keep the peace. The laws protecting citizens from harm cannot be accepted if the laws deliberately harm them. The laws prescribe morals and reflect morals that are common to mankind and are not discriminatory on the basis of race, social status, gender, sexuality, religion and so on.

The Doctrine of Precedents/Stare Decisis
Introduction
The doctrine of precedents or stare decisis is predicated on the belief that it is a 'natural practice of the human mind, whether legal or non-legal to accept the same pattern in similar or analogous cases.' Stare decisis is a Latin term which translates to mean, 'to abide by,' or to 'adhere to, decided cases.' In practice this means that where a court establishes a standard and principle of law based on a specific set of facts, courts will follow this standard and principle in all cases with consistent facts and circumstances. This essay is divided into two main parts. The First part of this essay describes the doctrine of precedents and the send part examines its significance for the English legal system.

The Doctrine of Precedents
The doctrine of precedents operates to establish the binding nature of a past decision on a court. Within the English legal system, the precedent of a lower court is only binding on that court and inferior courts. A higher court can over-rule a precedent if it finds that it was unreasonably decided. In practice lower courts typically refer to precedents of higher courts. The binding element of the case is the 'ratio decidendi' or 'reason for deciding'.

The House of Lords laid out the principles for the doctrine of precedents in London Tramways Co. v London County Council. In this case the House of Lords expressed the view that when judgements are rendered at the highest level of the appellate process, those judgments should be final and binding on lower courts and the court rendering the judgment in the interest of certainty and consistency of the law. The circumstances in which the court could depart from the doctrine of precedents was established and included cases where a previous judge made a decision that was erroneous. The decision would be erroneous if it was decided on the basis of a statute that had been repealed or a misinterpretation of an existing rule of law or statute. In such a case, the court seized of a similar matter would not be bound by the previous decision founded on error.

Many years later the doctrine of precedents was revisited in Practice Statement (Judicial Precedent). In the Practice Statement, it was decided that the 'rigid adherence to the precedent may lead to injustice in a particular case and also unduly restrict the proper development of the law.' Essentially, the standards for departure from the doctrine of stare decisis, set by the previous case of London Tramways, were expanded. In the Practice Statement, the court was permitted to depart from the doctrine of stare decisis if it appeared to be fair to do so and unfair to adhere to the doctrine.

Courts have shown that they are amenable to departure from the doctrine of stare decisis where it appears to be fair to do so. For example, the Caldwell recklessness test established in MPC v Caldwell was departed from in a later case. In MPC v Caldwell, an intoxicated hotel employee set fire to the hotel and caused significant damages. At his criminal trial for the fire, the Caldwell recklessness test which required judging the defendant's recklessness objectively. The objective recklessness test required asking whether or not an individual in the same circumstances as the defendant would have acted as the defendant did and if such a defendant could reasonably be expected to know the risk of harm and damages his behaviour would cause.

The Caldwell recklessness test however was found to be inappropriate and unfair in a case with similar facts and circumstances. In the case in question, the offenders were minors and could not have reasonably appreciated the risks that they were taking by deliberately setting a fire. Therefore, the court applied a subjective test and in doing so departed from the Caldwell recklessness test. The court felt that it was entirely unfair to hold minor children to the same standards that adults are held to when attempting to determine the reasonableness of their decisions and behaivours.

A few years after the Practice Statement, the House of Lords departed from a previous decision where it was held that owners and occupiers of realty did not owe trespassers a duty of care. The House of Lords departed from this rule in British Railways Board v Herrington. The case involved the electrocution of a six year old who had been playing and ended up on a railway line that had been corralled by a fence which had fallen part that the boy was able to gain access to the rail. In deciding to depart from the rule that trespassers were not entitled to a duty of care, Lord Pearson ruled that the previous rule:

...had been rendered obsolete by changes in physical and social conditions and has become an incumbrance impeding the proper development of the law. With the increase of the population and the larger proportion living in cities and towns and the extensive substitution of blocks of flats for rows of houses with gardens or backyards and quiet streets, there is less playing space for children and so a greater temptation to trespass. There is less supervision of children, so that they are more likely to trespass...There is considerably more need than there used to be for occupiers to take reasonable steps with a few to deterring persons especially children, from trespassing in places

A case of significant interest is the case of R v R in which the House of Lords dealt with the common law proposition that a man, through marital concepts could not be charged with rape since marriage automatically conferred upon the man the wife's consent. In R v R, the House of Lords ruled that:

The common law is, however, capable of evolving in the light of changing social, economic and cultural developments. Hale's proposition reflected the state of affairs in these respects at the time it was enunciated. Since then the status of women, and particularly of married women, has changed out of all recognition in various ways which are very familiar and upon which it is unnecessary to go into detail. Apart from property matters and the availability of matrimonial remedies, one of the most important changes is that marriage is in modern times regarded as a partnership of equals, and no longer one in which the wife must be the subservient chattel of the husband. Hale's proposition involves that by marriage a wife gives her irrevocable consent to sexual intercourse with her husband under all circumstances and respective of the state of her health or how she happens to be feeling at the time. In modern times any reasonable person must regard that conception as quite unacceptable.

The obvious implications are that the doctrine of precedents or the stare decisis doctrine are favoured in the United Kingdom. At the same time, the House of Lords have shown that they will not blindly apply previous precedent. Since the passage of the Practice Statement, the House of Lords have been consistent in their resolve to not allow new conditions and circumstances to be decided on the basis of old precedents that no longer have relevance.

The Role of the Doctrine of Precedents in the English Legal System
The doctrine of precedent is especially important for creating consistency in the courts and in doing so fosters confidence in the integrity of the law. This consistency also comes with certainty of outcome and the ability to negotiate and settle cases outside of the court. This can reduce the litigation load for courts. With this certainty, litigants can predict outcomes and this can temper litigious behaviour.

Farber identified three broad reasons for the precedent process. First, precedents benefit all decision-makers, not only judges. Secondly, precedents are beneficial to the courts, and finally, precedents help to establish constitutional law. Specifically, decision-makers at any level save time by referencing previous decisions based on the same set of facts and circumstances. It is impractical to expect that each court trial will involve a debate over issues that have already been tried and tested. For example, in a constitutional case involving civil rights, it would be entirely impractical to argue points that have already been decided for years such as whether specific actions fall within the scope of the constitutional case before the court. Moreover, without precedents, courts would render inconsistent judgements and the outcome would be very unpredictable. This would result in too much uncertainty and therefore a lack of confidence in the judicial process.

Overall, the doctrine of precedents shapes the court system in a way that supports the constitution. It allows courts to proceed with significant efficiency. In addition to saving time among the judiciary, the doctrine of precedents no doubt motivates the judiciary to be innovative and evaluative in light of the fact that they may be creating a precedent. Precedents are important efficiency tools because judges vary in their philosophies and preferences and as such, precedents force judges into 'convergence' which weeds out diverse rulings on the same factual issues. Precedents are therefore valuable because they prevent 'frequent defections from a established precedent' which if allowed, would 'undermine the process of converging to efficiency'.

In discussions about precedents it has been debated whether judicial precedents make law or simply make declarations about what the law is. In many cases where there are no statutory basis for describing an offence, judges to make law and this is often referred to as common law. For example, the Office for National Statistics points out that the offence of homicide which covers murder and manslaughter are not defined by statutes and are therefore common law offences. Thus it is reasonable to presume that judges do make law and this law is established and circulated through the doctrine of precedents.

Based on the discussion in this essay, it can be concluded that judicial precedents play a significant role in the English legal system. First, judicial precedents operate to close gaps in the law. For example, a statute or a previous judgment may establish a rule of law in a commercial context. Such a rule of law may be the acceptance of documentary evidence defined in terms of hard copies. However, digital images may not have been contemplated at the time of legislation and judgement. A judge seized of a case may take that opportunity to classify digital documents as documentary evidence. This establishes a precedent which is in essence judge-made law. In addition to filling gaps in the law, the doctrine of precedents essentially codifies the common law and facilitates efficiency.

Conclusion
The doctrine of precedent is unique to common law systems and in particular the English legal system. The fact that it has been in force for hundreds of years speaks volumes for its effectiveness. Based on the discussion in the essay above, it is at least clear that the problems that the withdrawal of the doctrine of precedent would cause is the primary reason for keeping it around. The main concern is the lack of certainty, consistency and predictability. This would not only create a lot of confusion and chaos in the legal system, it would impact the confidence that the public generally have in the judiciary and their ability to identify and administer justice. There is a lot of concern that judges would fall into a practice of setting aside case after case so that the idea of common law would be a thing of the past. In addition, statutory interpretations that have become fortified by judicial decisions would constantly change. The law itself would become a state of disorder. While legislators can remedy this by implementing laws that codify law, judges will still have to make decisions and interpret statutes. The status quo is fair and it allows for judges to depart from a precedent if it is outdated or the circumstances and conditions have changed to such an extent that the rule of law contained in the judgement is inconsistent with the reality of today.

Statutory Interpretations
Introduction
Statutes are described as complex sources of law because legislators often frame them in very narrow terms or very broad terms. In order to prevent bias and individual philosophies interfering with objective judgments, judges in their declaratory roles abide by a set of methodologies for interpreting statutes. The judiciary uses rules of construction and rules of language to interpret statutes. The rules of construction are the main rules and include literal, golden mischief and purposive rules. These rules are discretionary in that judges are free to select which rule of construction is best suited to the statute at hand. This essay is divided into two main parts. The first part of this essay will discuss the rules of construction and the second part of this essay will discuss the rules of language.

Rules of Construction
The Literal Rule
In Sussex Peerage Case [1844] 11 CI& Fin 85, Tindal CJ explained that the literal rule should be used. Specifically, Tindal CJ stated that the:
...only rule for the construction of Acts of Parliament is, that they should be construed according to the intent of Parliament which passed the act. If the words of the statute are in themselves precise and unambiguous, then no more can be necessary than to expound those words in their natural and ordinary sense. The words themselves alone do, in such case, best declare the intention of the lawgiver.

It is important to note, that the literal rule contemplates that it will be applicable where the intention of the legislator is clear and this is frequently not the case. However, judges will always look to the literal rule prior to attempting one of the other rules. Judges look at the statute and attempt to give the words contained in the statute its ordinary dictionary meaning.

In the case of Fisher v Bell [1961] 1 QB 394, a shop vendor exhibited a flick knife described as an ejector knife. Pursuant to Section 4 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959, it was an offence to sell or offer for sale a flick knife. The prosecution argued that the shop vendor offered a flick knife for sale contrary to Section 4 of the Restriction of Offensive Weapons Act 1959. The shop vendor's defence was that no such offer had been made. The Queen's Bench Divisional Court applied the literal meaning of the statute and ruled that the display of an item in a shop window with a price attached to it was not an offer for sale, but rather an invitation to treat and therefore no contravention of the 1959 Act took place. The court went on to note that there was no indication in the Statute that Parliament intended that the words offer for sale should mean anything beyond what it means in the law of contract.

The literal rule may lead to an unfair result. For example, under the Street Offences Act 1959, it was an offence for public solicitation. In Smith v Hughes [1960] 1 WLR 830, prostitutes solicited from private windows and balconies and were charged under the Street Offences Act 1959. If the literal rule had been used the prostitutes would have escaped successful prosecution and this would have been an unfair outcome because despite the private nature of their solicitation, they were still observable by the public.

The Golden Rule
The purpose of the golden rule is to ward off the unintended consequences of applying the literal rule. This was observed in Smith v Hughes where the literal rule was ignored in favor of the golden rule. The golden rule was therefore used in Smith v Hughes because the conduct complained of was exactly what the legislators intended to prevent through the passage of Street Offences Act 1959.

In general, the court can take a narrow or wider view of the golden rule in deciding that to use the literal rule in interpreting a statute will lead to an unsatisfactory result. The narrow view was used in R v Allen [1872] LR 1 CCR 367. In R v Allen, Section 57 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861 applied. Under Section 57 it was an offence to get married if the initial spouse was not dead since divorce was not possible at the time. There were two possible interpretations of the word marry as the defendant was charged under Section 578 of the 1861 Act. The court considered that the literal interpretation of the word marry would mean that the defendant had not married since he could not legally marry another while his spouse was still alive. The other possible meaning of the word marry was to participate in a marital ceremony and in order to give effect to the legislators' intention the court took the narrow view and found that participating in a marital ceremony was consistent with the intention of the act and the word meaning as used in the act.

The wider view was used in Re Sigsworth [1935] 1 Ch 98. On the facts of the case, the Administration of Justice Act 1925 provided for the devolution of an estate of an individual who died intestate so that the estate was inherited by the next-of-kin. In this case the mother was murdered by her son who was the next-of-kin. There was nothing in the 1925 Act to suggest that the murderer could not benefit from his crime. It was held that the use of the literal rule would produce an unjust result and therefore the golden rule was used to stretch the meaning of the intestacy rule in the 1925 Act.

The Mischief Rule
The mischief rule is used to give statutory provisions the meaning that was intended by the legislator. The court asks 'what was the mischief which Parliament was trying to address? And then seeks to resolve any ambiguity in the working to reflect the legislative intention.' One way to accomplish this is by searching the discussions held by Parliament in passing the original Bill. The mischief rule was applied in the Smith v Hughes (cited above) to avoid an ambiguity posed by the use of the literal rule.

In Royal College of Nursing v DHSS [1981] 2 WLR 279, the Abortion Act 1967 was tested using the mischief rule. The Abortion Act 1967 provided that it was a defence to an abortion if a medical practitioner could prove that the conditions were satisfactory. The Royal College of Nursing challenged the supposition that nurses could conduct abortions under the Act. It was held that the purpose of the Act of 1967 was to avoid basement variety abortions and as a result, nurses could carry out abortions.

The Purposive Rule
The purposive rule is used when the court interprets statutes while taking into account, the purpose of the statute. This is similar to the mischief rule. The court will look at the reason the statute was implemented and its purpose although it can mean that the ordinary meaning of words in the statute are lost. The purposive rule was intended to be used with membership into the European Union. Therefore, the purposive rule is often used with regards to European Union law. Section 2(4) of the European Communities Act 1972, judges are required to take the purposive approach and give effect to European Union law in the interpretation and application of domestic law.

Language Rules
Expressio unis est exclusion alterius: 'to say one thing is to exclude the others'. Where a list appears in a statute the court will generally conclude that if something is not on the list, it was the legislator's intention to exclude it. For example a statute penalizing individuals for owning a dangerous wild animal and provides a list of dangerous wild animals, it can be concluded that if an animal is not listed it is not a dangerous wild animal within the meaning of the statute.

Noscitur a sociis: 'known by the company it keeps.' This means that the statute or words in the statute can be interpreted by reference to its context.

Eiusdem generis: 'of the same type.' Here a list may appear but in words that are generalized which opens up the possibility of other items being included on the list. For example, the word 'other offensive weapons' in a statute leaves open the possibility of including a wide list of weapons.

In pari materia: 'upon the same matter or subject'. According to this phrase any ambiguity in a statute can be resolved by reference to other legislative provisions on the 'same subject matter' if the legislative provision does not refer to 'another statute'.

Conclusion
Statutory interpretation appears to be a complex process. As discussed, statutes are complex and are aimed at specific outcomes. Judges not only have to identify what the intended consequence is, but also how to interpret the statute to achieve that consequence and to avoid an untended consequence. A number of discretionary rules have been developed over time to help judges in interpreting statutes to ensure intended consequences and to avoid unintended consequences. These rules are discretionary and therefore permits the judiciary the flexibility they need to ensure that statutes achieve the ends of justice that they are intended to achieve.

Reflection Questions:
Question 1: What role does law play in the ordering of society?
Question 2: What is the doctrine of precedents and what role does it play in the English Legal System?
Question 3: What is the significance of statutory interpretation?

Question 1: What role does law play in the ordering of society?
As we look back on the role that law plays in the ordering of society we come to the realization that without law the economy, the society, political institutions, morality, and international order would be in chaos. Law either through specific statutory provisions prescribes civil and criminal parameters for behaviour and sanctions for failure to comply. By taking this approach, civil and criminal disobedience, although particularly high, would be significantly higher to a point where the ordering of society would be a mammoth task doomed for failure. Theory and case law on the role of law in the ordering of society reveals that law acts as the conscience and reasoning of the man who cannot be counted on to be a rational actor. The rational actor would think about the gains and disadvantages of acting in ways that bring harm to himself, and/or to others and would decide the harm was not worth the pay-off. A rational man would have a conscience about his or her behaviour and how it can be detrimental to an unwitting individual.

Unfortunately, humanity has a fair share of irrational human beings. Without law prescribing morals, acceptable behavior, unacceptable behaviour and punishment for failing to act accordingly, the concept of free enterprise and human rights would be a misnomer. Irrational actors would not only have their way with individual property, they would very likely have their way with the political ordering and this would no doubt flow over into the international order. There is no telling where this would end or how it would end. We may not have reached the level of civility that we have today. We may have already fought World War III.

With law currently ordering society we are already confronting crises in the economy, armed conflicts, crimes against humanity contrary to international conventions, domestic crime, international crime, domestic terrorism, international terrorism and so on. I am forced to reflect on the idea that if we are confronting so may levels of unlawfulness in society with enforceable laws, one can only imagine just how unlawful a world we would be occupying now.

Question 2: What is the doctrine of precedent and what role does it play in the English Legal System?
Upon reflection I would describe the doctrine of precedent as a system in which the judiciary keeps records of decisions that either create or clarify new and old laws respectively. The doctrine of precedent is a system through which the courts create and document judgments and those judgements are binding on lower courts. However, only the higher court can depart from a precedent and only if there are changes in the current times that render a previous judgment obsolete or the previous judgment was erroneous or was absurd.

Academics and practitioners alike have praised the doctrine of precedent on the grounds that it does save a lot of time and resources and like the role of law in society, it prevents a major meltdown of resources. If judges, lawyers and clients had to argue their cases from scratch without reference to anything other than the statutes available to them, the court would become inundated with dockets packed way beyond capacity and this would in an indirect way lead to the collapse of society. Because with the courts tied up with full dockets, there is no telling how many criminal offenders would be released on bail and therefore placed back in society where thy have to learn to co-exist with fellow humans again.

I have considered how a lack of precedents would also directly impact the legal profession and those who rely on it for a number of reasons other than having to report for jail. In the absence of precedents our main source of law would likely be codes of practice and codes in general. Therefore, a lack of knowledge about the case that one's boss or someone else may have against him/her, may force innocent people from the judgment seat or out of safe communities on the basis of uncertainties about the possible outcome of a case. This is because, precedents have been found to create consistency and certainty in the judicial system. The uncertainty and the inability to predict legal outcomes can either open the floodgates or drive potential litigants with a justified sense of grievance out of the courts. This is particularly problematic for Britain where statutes are scattered and voluminous.

In addition, the doctrine of precedent has served a moderating function among the judiciary. It recognizes that judges are predisposed to have diverse philosophies and preferences. If judges were not bound by judicial precedents they would each decide cases based on their own preferences and philosophies and this would render the common law unpredictable, and uncertain. The intended ordering of society that is associated with law, would be lost. Cases based on the same facts and circumstances would be decided differently. The idea of equality before the law would be meaningless. This could create disorder and social unrest in society.

Upon reflection, it can be argued that the doctrine of precedents plays a significant role in the ordering of society. It creates equality before the law and it serves to cultivate confidence in the judiciary and therefore, in the justice system. The doctrine of precedent does not only ensure that the courts are organized and efficient, but also establishes law and order in society by providing access to a predictable, certain and consistent system for the administration of justice in a fair and partial way.

Question 3: What is the significance of statutory interpretation?
Statutory interpretation serves a significant purpose in the administration of justice. Statutes are complex and quite often if interpreted literally can lead to an absurd or unfair and unjust result. Therefore, the judiciary uses tools of construction that allow them to interpret statutes to ensure an outcome that is consistent with the intended consequence of the statute. For example, if a statute intends to prevent bigamy and further intends to punish those who commit bigamy and in doing so criminalizes marriage to two or more persons, the word marriage cannot be given its literal meaning. This is because upon marrying the first time, all subsequent marriages are null and void. If the statute took on the literal meaning of the word marriage, everyone charged with bigamy would be acquitted because they were not literally married to two or more individuals. The unintended consequence would be, a statute that is inoperable and unenforceable.

The judiciary recognizes these unintended consequences and interpret statutes to ensure that these unintended consequences do not occur. This ensures that law and order are maintained so that the mischief that the legislators are addressing are addressed adequately. Judges are also keenly aware that legislators cannot always contemplate all of the exigencies that might occur in the administration of justice. Therefore, the judiciary will use tools such as the mischief rule, the purposive rule, the golden rule and the literal rule to ensure that justice is accomplished appropriately.

When I reflect on statutory interpretation I cannot help but come to the conclusion that the judiciary plays a part in the making of law. While Parliament enacts the law, the judiciary interprets it and in doing so, declare exactly what the statute regulates and how it regulates. This together with the doctrine of precedent places the judiciary in a unique position to not only make law, but to fill gaps left by Parliament for the more efficient ordering of society.

Conclusion

Looking back at the role of law in societal ordering, the doctrine of precedent and statutory interpretation, it is reasonable to conclude that each of these factions of the English legal system combine to ensure the macro functioning of the law for societal order. Indirect ordering takes place. The legislators, very well aware that the judiciary has the last say with regards to statutes and will refuse to use the literal rule when statues are ambiguous and can therefore result in inconsistent and absurd outcomes, legislators will do their best to safeguard against enacting statutes than can significantly altered by the court. A system of checks and balances therefore takes place. This system of checks and balances constrains the power of the legislators in that they may not enact laws that are unconstitutional or will have an unfair, unjust and absurd outcome. If they do enact those kinds of laws, the judiciary will interpret those laws to have a fair and just outcome.

Upon reflecting on the material covered in this portfolio, it can be concluded that the judiciary plays the most significant role in the creation and maintenance of law and order inn society. Although legislators are elected officials and are charged with the responsibility of debating and enacting statutes, the judiciary has the final say in how the law is interpreted and applied. Thus when we look at the theories of Austin, Hart, and Dworkin, the two arguments advanced in that judges do not create law and that they do create law, both arguments are true. The legislators create law and the judiciary has the final say as in it is the judiciary that interprets and enforces the law. Without the judiciary, the legislators' jobs would be entirely futile as they would make laws that would be unenforceable, unless they created a police state. If that were the case, law and order would not be achieved. Law and order would be forced.

Writing Feedback / Investigating the impact of teachers' beliefs on their formative assessment practices [3]

Im posting this thread here as I want to know your feedback. My professor is saying that the work is not good since I missed many research questions. Could you please go through this resarch question and let me know on which areas I should improve here? Tutor said it is hard to read and understand, what should I do about it? Thanks.

RQ 1: What beliefs do teachers at the Language Centre at (SQU) hold about formative assessment?
RQ 2: What factors are responsible for shaping these teachers' beliefs and formative assessment practices?

The research shows that a majority of teachers consider formative assessment as an evaluation that ranks students against each other and as such forms the basis for competitiveness amongst students. In a broader sense, the teachers say that the Posthumus effect is an illustration of a normative assessment. This effect shows that teachers tend to adapt its requirements according to the class so that the performance of its students are distributed according to a Gaussian curve. It is a normative effect since the class is and where it segregates students compared to the average of the class, whether weak or strong. However, as evidenced in the results, more and more teachers have realized this challenge and put in place strategies to counter, for example by drafting joint reviews with several teachers. Further, teachers are of the opinion that in a mastery learning device, successful standard is not defined by the class but by the goals of education. It is therefore interesting to analyze how students are currently used to a standard system. As one teacher argues, it is important to see how the students attach importance to the success if we want to implement mastery learning devices.

As the results suggest, in formative evaluation, the error is not a lack, not a malfunction of the student needs to penalize, not a sign of its failure. Instead, the error reflects an incorrect or incomplete approach to student mastery of skills. It becomes a real tool for the teacher. He takes into consideration and analyses to make an accurate diagnosis. As a matter of fact, teachers express a belief that in a formative assessment system, the teacher becomes the student or a true partner who guides in the construction of learning. As the teacher's responses suggest, for each student, the satisfaction level with the announced performance, a result is obtained that can be seen as an index of self-esteem. Indeed, this idea is based on the assumption that the student has a negative self-esteem is one who does not reach in its performances, the satisfaction level that is itself defined. Conversely, students who have positive self-esteem are the ones whose performance exceeds the satisfaction threshold.

The results shows an agreement amongst teachers that evaluation is a crucial part of the learning process. In schools, the most directly visible form, according to the results are summative evaluations. They are used to measure what students have learned at the end of a training unit to get students from one class to another, to ensure that they have the level required for graduation or to access certain positions or select students for entrance to higher education. Formative assessment platform provides a platform through which these are achieved. However, teachers note that the assessment may also take a formative function. In the classroom, formative assessment refers to frequent, interactive assessments of progress and achievements of students to identify needs and adjust instruction accordingly. According to the results, teachers using formative assessment techniques are better prepared to meet the diverse needs of students - differentiating and adapting their teaching to improve student achievement and equity of results. The generalization of this practice, however, faces significant obstacles, including perceived tensions between the involved classroom formative assessments and summative tests with high visibility for causing schools to meet student achievement, and a lack of consistency between systems evaluation approaches, institutions and classes.

All teachers that participated in this study encourage formative assessment because they see it as a way to achieve the objectives of the training throughout life. They are motivated by quantitative and qualitative data demonstrating that the teaching that incorporates formative assessment has helped improve the level of students and help teachers to meet the needs of student populations increasingly diversified, which contributes to reducing inequality. Teachers who use formative assessment methods accompany the students in developing their personal skills "learning to learn" - skills that the rapid obsolescence of knowledge in the information society makes increasingly essential.

Additionally, teachers are in agreement that the methods of formative assessment played an important role in improving the general level of students. Quantitative and qualitative research has shown that this form of evaluation could be one of the most operating on student performance ever studied interventions. This is in line with Black and Wiliam that concluded that,

"[...] Formative assessment does improve learning. Progress seems quite considerable and as noted above, they are among the most important he has ever reported for educational interventions. For example, and to show the importance of this progress, an effect of 0.7, if it could be obtained across the nation, would be to raise the average math score of a country like England , New Zealand or the United States among the "top five" after the Pacific Rim countries - Singapore, Korea, Japan and Hong Kong. (Black and Wiliam, 1998, p. 61)"

These findings provide a solid basis for further research on teaching strategies, learning and most successful evaluation.
The teachers interviewed further agree that formative assessment builds skills "learning to learn" by focusing on the process of teaching and learning and by actively involving students. By developing their skills in peer review and self-assessment, helping them to understand their own learning and to develop strategies for "learning to learn ". As a matter of facts, a majority of the interviewed teachers are of the opinion that students that with formative assessment, students actively build their mastery of new concepts (not just absorb information), given that it helps them to develop a set of strategies to locate new ideas in a wider context and learning to judge the quality of their work and that of their peers with respect to objectives and clear and specific learning criteria also gain valuable skills to learn throughout life.

The study's findings show that the main obstacles (but not only) in the dissemination of formative assessment include the tension between formative assessments of student achievement in the classroom and made highly visible summative tests - that is to say, national or regional scale assessments of students, which are used to constrain institutions to meet outcomes and that can have deadly consequences for the weak or insufficient facilities. Too often highly visible summative tests used to force schools to meet student outcomes determine what happens in the classroom. The lack of linkages between systems evaluation approaches, institutions and classes. Too often, it is considered that the information collected as part of national or regional monitoring systems or even internal evaluation for institutions show no interest in the teaching activity. Too often, it is considered that the information obtained in class are irrelevant to political orientation.

It was further noted that although teachers often express ambivalence or even some resistance against external summative tests, nothing in the summative evaluation is inherently opposed to the use of formative methods. The fact is that summative results can be used for formative purposes. Teachers noted that formative assessment was more knowledge oriented unlike in summative tests where teachers often feel compelled to teach "for the examination" and students are encouraged to achieve performance targets (pass exams) at the expense of learning objectives (capture and master new knowledge) which is the focus of formative assessment. Many teachers - if not all - felt that these external evaluations are difficult to reconcile and even totally incompatible with the practice of formative assessment. External tests have poor design, the comparative rankings of institutions operated by the media from parcel data and the lack of link between the tests and the program can also hinder innovation; problems that do not plague formative assessment. Additionally, research evidence suggest that teachers are more likely to use formative assessment information when they are well coordinated.

There is no doubt an agreement amongst teachers that while not a panacea for all educational challenges, formative assessment is an effective way to reach high performance goals and strong equity of outcomes, in addition to giving students the knowledge and skills needed to learn at their throughout their lives. There is a general agreement that systems that overcome tensions that impede the diffusion of formative assessment and that promote a culture of evaluation are much more likely to make greater progress towards these goals. Amongst the principles that a majority of teachers agree to as constituting formative learning include:

- Establishment of a classroom culture that encourages interaction and the use of tools of devaluation.
- Definition of learning objectives and track individual student progress towards these objectives.
- Use of varied teaching methods to meet the diverse needs of students.
- Use of diverse methods to evaluate student achievement.
- Feedback on student performance and adaptation of instruction to meet identified needs.
- Active involvement of students in the learning process.

The most striking observation from teacher's feedback is that they have integrated these six principles in their regular practice. If they do not they necessarily attach equal importance (some teachers more emphasis on feedback given to students, others feel more important to offer a diverse range of learning opportunities), they apply each of these six principles to structure learning and assessment. Teachers have created a framework, language and tools, using the various components of formative assessment to shape their approach to teaching and learning. As a matter of fact, it is evident that teachers have integrated formative assessment into their teaching and class created a culture conducive to using it as an assessment tool. In the interviews, the teachers stressed the importance of securing the students that they dare to take risks and make mistakes in class. This idea is practical part: students who have enough confidence to take risks are more likely to reveal what they understand and what they do not understand, an essential feature of the training process.

The findings also highlights the importance of attracting students' attention on mastering tasks rather than competition with peers and develop emotional skills. Indeed, just as revealed in the findings, the emotional skills such as self-awareness, self-control, empathy, cooperation, flexibility and the ability to judge the value of information are useful to students in school and everything throughout their lives. Emotions also have an influence on self-esteem and motivation and ability of the student to regulate his own learning.

It was further noted that the interviewed teachers use objective standards to set learning goals for students, sometimes breaking down the goals into secondary units for weaker students. A majority have also abandoned the traditional scoring systems that tend to be based on a "social comparison" of student performance (that is to say, on comparing the performance of each student to those of its peers) - in favor of methods that allow them to monitor student progress toward learning goals based on precise criteria, thus embracing formative assessment. As a matter of fact, just as emphasized in a number of the reviewed literature material, the findings support the idea that formative assessment is more effective in monitoring student progress on the path of impartial learning goals that compare with peers. Further, they note that in situations of comparison, the weakest students convince themselves that they lack capacity and thus lose motivation and confidence. Indeed, they is a perception amongst teachers that the feedback that refers to student progress and work improvement opportunities that formative assessment offers can help offset the negative impact of social comparisons. Additionally, teachers noted that the burden of setting learning goals and monitor student progress towards achieving these objectives makes the learning process more transparent; students do not have to guess what they must do to succeed.

Another component of formative assessment emphasized by teachers is the use of varied teaching methods to meet the needs of diverse students in which case teachers cited adjusting their teaching methods to the needs of a variety of students, meaning in some cases they adapt teaching to reflect different emotional styles. Teachers note that the most vulnerable students need help to develop their emotional skills. They strive to help students gain confidence in their skills and knowledge and their ability to manage their own learning. This is in line with arguments by social and cognitive psychologists, anthropologists and other social scientists that recognize that knowledge and experiences that children bring with them to school have a determining influence on their learning experience. According to the study's findings, these prior knowledge are formed in part by ethnicity, the culture, socioeconomic medium and gender. There is widespread agreement across those surveyed that teachers can help students understand new concepts and ideas related to their previous world views and representations. As a matter of fact, the findings suggest that by teachers being aware of different cultural modes of communication and are listening to individual communication modes, they are better able to promote expression of what students understand and take ownership of new ideas. This perception is aligned the proposal by the Swiss education researcher Philippe Perrenoud (1998) that stated,

"[...] To the extent that students do not have the same means, not the same needs, not the same workings, an optimal situation for one will not be optimal for the other [...] We can write a simple equation: diversity of persons + adequacy of treatment each = diversity of treatments (Perrenoud, 1998, p. 93-94)"

The observations of the early research suggests that we must completely rethink the strategies to ensure equity of outcomes. But it is also necessary to refine the research on the impact of formative assessment on the different methods students. This research could examine whether and how formative assessment can meet the needs of students based on their personal differences such as emotional style or ethnicity, culture, socio-economic background or gender.

Teachers further observed that institutions use various methods to assess individual student progress over time, within realistic frameworks and in a variety of contexts. Students who fail certain tasks have the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills in others. These varied assessments also help to gather information about students' ability to transfer acquired to new situations - an important skill judged for "learning to learn" - and also on how the acquired knowledge can be correct or deepen the student.

Further, feedback on student performance and adaptation of instruction for meeting identified needs is largely mentioned by teachers as a fundamental component of formative assessment. The findings reveals that the feedback plays a vital role in the formative evaluation, but all the feedback forms may not be effective: it must intervene at the appropriate time, be specific and include tips for improving future performance. Good feedback is also linked to explicit criteria relating to expected performance, making the learning process more transparent and shows students how to use the skills of "learning to learn". This view is reinforced by multiple studies including Black and Wiliam (1998) that identified a number of studies conducted in ecologically valid circumstances (that is to say, controlled experiments, carried out in the normal classroom setting students with their usual teacher ) that reinforce the view. Feedback requesting ego (even in the form of congratulations) instead of carrying out the task in question appears to affect performance. Furthermore, teachers also noted that students' results improve when working on process goals rather than on product goals and when they follow their progress towards the achievement of learning goals. Teachers also noted that they benefit from feedback processes. When giving feedback, teachers give more attention to what students understand and do not understand and are better able to adjust teaching strategies to meet identified student needs.

The findings of this study suggest that the extent to which institutional policy and other contextual educational factors impact on teachers' beliefs about formative assessment is sometimes determined by teachers' degree of compliance with and perception of these policies and factors. This is to say that teachers are more likely to align their beliefs with institutional policies and contextual educational factors mostly when the latter does not explicitly clash with the former. For instance, despite the LC teachers' acknowledgment of the institution's influence on their formative assessment beliefs and practices, they did not comply with the LC's policy which restricted their use of assessment materials to those prescribed by the LC curriculum. On the contrary, the majority of the LC teachers believed in using their own self-developed assessment materials when using formative assessment and they seemed to be against relying on the prescribed materials and being restricted by their limited boundaries. This may also reflect a growing ambivalence among LC teachers towards their institution's curriculum mandates similar to that of the Australian teachers towards their states' assessment mandates which was reported in Davison (2004). Davison found that Australian teachers did not uncritically implement the state published criteria but seemed to rely more on their professional judgments. Indeed, this explanation is strongly supported by the findings of the study as it was evident in almost all teachers' interviews. For instance, in the following two quotes Fatma and Buthaina stressed that teachers should be given some freedom to choose the content of the formative assessment curriculum and they opposed to relying on and being restricted by the prescribed curriculum.

Active involvement of students in the learning process also largely featured as a strength of formative assessment. Basically, those interviewed agreed with the fact that the goal of formative assessment is to assist students in developing their own skills "learning to learn" (sometimes called "metacognitive" strategies). Students are well equipped with their own language and their own tools for learning and are better able to transfer and apply these skills to solve everyday problems; they gain the ability to find answers or to devise strategies to solve the problems with which they are unfamiliar. In other words, they develop control strategies in their learning process. Further, the findings show that formative assessment takes note of the fact that learning provide assistance in teaching self-evaluation techniques and analyzing the effectiveness of different learning strategies for students. Those interviewed note that these teaching methods are particularly important for students who are not helped at home.

Regardless of LC teachers' diverse cultural and educational background, level of qualification, type of teacher training and prior experiences, the teachers in this study appeared to mostly hold similar beliefs about formative assessment. The main beliefs of the 127 teachers who participated in this study considered formative assessment a pivotal component of the language classroom and provided common justifications for the use of this type of assessment. These "core beliefs" (Clark & Peterson, 1986) reflected that though LC teachers were fully aware of what formative assessment was and how it should be used, they still expressed a strong need for professional development that would enhance their knowledge and promote their effective implementation of formative assessment. The beliefs of the LC teachers seemed to conform to a particular pattern in terms of implementing and integrating formative assessment in the ongoing teaching. This pattern was characterized by and reflected in LC teachers' common views about planning, integrating and implementing formative assessment in teaching, customizing assessment to suit the foreign language context and the target students, informing students in advance about assessment and assessment criteria and using formative assessment for summative purposes and vice versa. The beliefs of the LC teachers seemed to reflect a common understanding and perception of the concept of validity and reliability of formative assessment among these teachers. These beliefs also highlighted the extent to which formative assessment was misused in the LC and provided some insight into how this serious problem could be resolved.

RQ 3: Do students share the same understanding and perception of formative assessment with their teachers?

One of the most outstanding things is the role of teachers and hence their impact training session on learning theories and nor formative assessment is no exception. In reality, the findings reveal that teachers gradually need to build models of different ways of learning for their students. They are required to pay attention in the selection of tasks and questions, so that students can advance their ideas, so they can better restructure their learning. Teachers are also attentive to student answers, and direct them towards gainful responses. Teachers realize that they have roles to play in making this form of evaluation a success. The impact of teachers in formative assessment can be termed as arising from observing the students, monitoring daily leads him to regulate individual and collective rhythms, and to modulate the requirements of personnel given class work at home and help in identifying the successes and mistakes.

The context appears marked by strong difficulties in exercising the profession. While being mobilized for the success of all students, teachers of the study nevertheless expressed a feeling of weariness, frustration or pain caused by poor working conditions and in some cases, the inability to advance many of their students in check. In some cases it appears that the teacher has identified the problems faced by the student and the measures to remedy this but these measures require personalized support without having time to realize it.

Furthermore, teachers especially committed to educational point of view as the political perspective evokes a sociopolitical context not conducive to encouraging assessment: "There is a long and slow process of degradation of the system, the student relationship / between teacher and teachers who are going in the direction of degradation and the growing alienation of the workers that have become teachers." According to this teacher, alienation is, in this case, not being aware of the social logic of the evaluation. This view appears however to relativize the light of considerations of other teachers who express the contrary some awareness of this social logic.

3 impact types are present:

- Proactive regulation: mechanism by which the student ensures that he understands the task, although he uses the knowledge to realize that he has the knowledge to perform the task.

- Interactive regulation: mechanism by which the student adapts the resources, the knowledge, cognitive and metacognitive strategies necessary to achieve the task.

- Post active regulation: analysis, comparison, conclusions about the work of view of the student, the class and the teacher.
The evaluation must be done on multiple objects. Of course, it is on knowledge and skills, but it is also done on the parameters that can help students learn. For example, think of the emotional, cognitive, motivational...

Furthermore, the assessment also covers the teacher's approach.

d) Regulation of the activity

The regulation of the activity leads to successful business. It is based more on the finished product. As against the regulation of learning helps students to cognitive conflict and metacognition. What is important is that students will have a conscious knowledge of his knowledge, that he knows the functioning of his thought processes that are involved when performing a task. To be aware of how they learn, students need feedback. It is through the formative evaluation it will get that feedback.

e) Formative assessment or formative observation

Philippe Perrenoud (1998), proposes to speak formative observation rather than formative assessment. Indeed, formative assessment as it should be practiced, is partly to observe the attitude of the students, their approach, their way to make connections, their comments, their silences, their objections, their misunderstandings, their questions , their mistakes ... On the other hand, the term "formative assessment" is always closely linked to notions of quotes, notes, bulletins, etc. ...

Nowadays, the error is still often synonymous with fear, stress. If the student has understood, listened, then he cannot make any mistakes. If he made a mistake that he did not listen to the teacher or poorly explained or chose a bad example... The student is then penalized. The error is still too often misperceived.

Cognitive theories tell us that learning is not done so immediate. The subject must take risks to apply knowledge. It is the use, transform, reuse, validate, adjust, make trials and errors further tests ... Therefore, the error will allow the subject to learn. In formative evaluation, the error is not considered a failure, a penalty, a weakness but as a way forward, to learn better. It reveals the strategies and performances of students. It is seen as a moment in solving a problem. The role of the error is essential. It should be considered as a useful basis for the learner and the trainer. Do not, under any circumstances seek to punish but logical.

Formative assessment helps students manage their learning. He learns to regulate itself and thus acquires autonomy. He can judge a situation, plan, organize, adjust their knowledge, resources and strategies and assess its way to achieve a situation problem.

Respondents believe that formative assessment should:

- enhance the student's knowledge.
- support students and give information indicating whether he is in the right direction or not.
- be made as soon as possible after the completion of the task, or even during,
- and must be operative by the student.
- be comprehensible to the student.
- allow the student to see that the changes it will operate following the
- have feedback effects.
- provide information on student progress in relation to himself and not by another.
- provide any information that could help the student.

Self-assessment plays an important role. It allows students to learn about their own mental processes and therefore teaches them to manage them better. According to Gérard Scallon (1997), self-assessment should also be an objective in itself training. Self-assessment empowers the student as analyzing their own mental strategies, it becomes less dependent on the feedback from the teacher.

Self-assessment helps students to verbalize, to objectify the way he proceeded. What have I wanted to do, what am I doing, how I do it, what are the steps which I am aware, what I see when I compare what I have done with what was expected, what would I change, what helped me, what seemed difficult, what put me ill at comfortable, what made me particularly proud ...

The student, through self-assessment, must happen to make comments on its productions to understand why sometimes it "stuck" and thus be able to find solutions to overcome them. This implies that the student must know the evaluation criteria or even having committed himself with the teacher. Therefore, it can be expressed more easily in relation to the completion of the task. The teacher, through these comments, discover actionable insights, ways to respond optimally to the student.

Moreover, the practice of self-assessment strengthens student participation in learning. It is done under the supervision of the teacher. It helps the student to make metacognition.

Finally, self-assessment is very close of metacognition. Metacognition includes the ability to reflect on their way of learning, the knowledge of its own cognitive processes and products and the ability to use and control these cognitive processes in order to achieve an objective.

Assessment allows teachers to first locate students with each other and they indicate their level or their value in a discipline. They express an awareness of nature affecting the assessment, in case of positive and negative evaluation if not with the feeling that a negative assessment is critical, it is difficult to get out and can cause a rejection of the matter and the school in general. This situation generates in their feelings of injustice and helplessness. There is also an awareness of over-determination of social skills. The findings show that teachers are actively involved in practices of formative assessment and to encourage and help students grow: self-confidence, self-esteem, sense of competency development, individual aid, the ability to redo his work, recovery of production corresponds to their values and educational goals. Among the practices to develop skills: the ability to repeat all or part of the work required for the assessment with the assurance of an improved rating, adapt the instructions to students' abilities, support students in achieving the task Evaluation is either helping them by allowing teamwork.

The findings present the teacher as responsible for the younger learning, assessment of product daily to track student achievement in the classroom and communicate with parents about their child's progress. Teachers also produces assessments as part of diplomas and awards and contributes partially to define the levels of employment and thus social destinies. The teacher consequently produces various student assessments that experts call either formative - when assessments help students in their learning continuously - or summative - when assessments are benchmarks for institutional decisions for career and educational guidance, for example for a transition to the next grade, repetition or a sector of choice. In many countries, these two dimensions intersect. Internal assessments of students are the sole responsibility of the teacher in his class and his establishment.

The LC teachers' beliefs about implementing and integrating formative assessment in teaching were clearly evident in their views about (1) how frequently they used, planned for and integrated formative assessment in teaching, (2) how they framed formative assessment and whether they informed their students in advance about assessment and criteria, (3) how they customized formative assessment to suit the foreign language context and the target students. (4) how they approached formative assessment in terms of using individual/pair/group assessment, (5) how they used data from assessment to guide teaching and material production, (6) how they used formative assessment for summative purposes and vice versa. These views directly relate to the four aspects (i.e. planning, framing, and conducting and using assessment data) of the first dimension of Hill and McNamara's (2012) CBA framework as will be discussed next.

In assessing the role of evaluation of students by teachers reveals a complex practice that articulates two dimensions which can appear as antagonists. Firstly internal evaluation is a judgment of the teacher, the student's academic progress, occurs in a classroom context, requiring some form of educational freedom without which the act of teaching cannot be adapted the local context and the students that the teacher must accompany. It is also, more often in parallel - for summative and formative assessment intersect in many countries - the appreciation of the value of academic production on the basis of objective criteria, given the stakes assessments, already highlighted in the introduction - that the school selection and certification. Subjectivity and objectivity necessary, freedom and constraints between-mingle incessantly in the teacher's evaluation work in the classroom. Also, traditionally, school regulations that govern internal evaluations ranged from recognition of the pedagogical freedom of teachers and external constraints, legal, imposed on teachers in the field.

The findings reveal that multiple factors affect student achievement with regard to formative assessment including: skills, expectations, motivation and behavior of the students themselves; resources, attitudes and support for families; skills, attitudes and peer group behavior; organization, resources and climate at the school; the structure and content of curricula; the skills, knowledge, attitudes and practices of teachers. Schools and classrooms are complex, dynamic environments, which is why one of the main lines of educational research has been, and remains, to determine the effects of these various factors and their interactions interrelations - and for different types of students and different types of formations.

Three main conclusions emerge from research on student achievement. The first conclusion, and most firmly established is that variations in pupils' achievements are mainly due to their luggage upon entry to school - their abilities and attitudes as well as their family and social environment. It is difficult for policy makers to influence these factors at least in the short term.

The second major finding is that among the variables on which policy makers could possibly act, those who exercise the main influence on student achievement are those related to teachers and teaching. It is generally agreed that the "teacher quality" is the single most important school variable influencing student achievement.

The third major conclusion of the research, which lends a little more controversial, concerns the indicators of teacher quality or correlation factors. The research mostly consisted of examining the relationship between measures of student performance, that is to say most often notes on standardized tests, and easily measurable characteristics such as teacher qualifications, experience educational, as well as indicators of their theoretical skills or knowledge in a particular discipline. These studies generally show a positive relationship between these measures of teacher characteristics and student performance, but perhaps to a lesser degree than that which might be expected. Various studies agree on the idea that the quality of teachers includes many important aspects which do not reflect the commonly used indicators such as qualifications, experience and assessment of academic skills. Among the characteristics of teachers that it is more difficult to measure but can be critical to student achievement include the ability to convey ideas clearly and convincingly, to create an effective learning environment for different types of students, to encourage the establishment of enriching relationships between teachers and students, to demonstrate enthusiasm and imagination and work effectively with colleagues and parents.

Expectations for schools and teachers are becoming increasingly complex. Contemporary society expects of institutions that they effectively address the issue of different languages and backgrounds of students who are enrolled, they are sensitive to cultural issues and gender equality, they encourage tolerance and social cohesion, they take charge effectively disadvantaged students and those with learning or behavioral problems, they use new technologies and remain in phase with the new fields of knowledge and approaches to assessment, which are evolving rapidly.

The impact which is now vested in the teacher is considered more extensive and covers in particular the individual development of children and young people, management of classroom learning process, the transformation of the whole of the school into a "learning community" and links with local communities and the outside world. Examples of areas covered by this expanded responsibility of teachers:

At the individual student

- Set up and manage the learning process
- Responding effectively to the needs of individual learners
- Integrate formative and summative assessment

At the classroom level

- To teach multicultural classes
- Develop new skills transversely across the curriculum
- Integrating students with special educational needs

At the school

- Working in teams and plan
- Educational Evaluation and organizational development programs
- Use of ICT in teaching and administration
- The management and sharing practices can

At the level of parents and the wider community

- Advice professionally parents
- Establish partnerships with local communities

The teacher issues also figure prominently on the political agenda because of concerns of teachers themselves about the future of their profession: is it sufficiently attractive to talented new entrants, and teachers are they sufficiently rewarded and supported in their work? As teachers are in daily contact with students likely to form the next generation of teachers, enthusiasm and morale of the current teachers have a considerable influence on the supply of teachers of the future.

The current schedule of renewed interest in policies related to teacher choice is of utmost importance. The fact that a large number of teachers recruited during the great expansion period of the 1960s and 1970s are approaching retirement age is both a challenge and an unprecedented perspective in most countries. Although a considerable amount of experience and skill should be replaced as and when retirements, the opportunity to reform the deeply faculty and benefit from these changes that awaits many countries represents only once in a generation.

The number of new teachers that will integrate the profession will be higher over the next 5-10 years than in the last 20 years. The arrival in power of new teachers have updated skills and new ideas can be the bearer of a profound renewal of schools. In addition, it can afford to allocate more resources to development as a younger faculty alleviate budgetary constraints. However, if a career in teaching is devoid of appeal and if the teaching does not change basically, the risk of decline in the quality of schooling is real, and a spiral down effect would be difficult to reverse.

Although the information is often fragmented and lacks longer-term data, and although not all countries not in the same position, to outline emerged. Concerns about the attractiveness of teaching as a profession

- A about half the countries reported concerns about maintaining an adequate supply of teachers a good level, particularly in areas where demand is higher

- Concerns about the long-term evolution of the composition of the teaching staff are also common, such as a decrease in "brightest" teachers and the number of men in the profession;

- There are concerns about the image and status of teachers; teachers often feel that their work is undervalued;

- The remuneration for teachers is declining in most of the participating countries

- Concerns about the development of knowledge and skills of teachers

- Almost all countries report concerns about "qualitative" weaknesses: they raise the question of whether a sufficient number of teachers have the knowledge and know-how to meet the needs of schools;

- There are major concerns about the lack of fit between teacher training, professional development, and school needs;

- Many countries do not have an introduction to the teaching structures for beginning teachers.

- Concerns about recruiting, selecting and employing teachers

- Most countries are concerned about the uneven distribution of teachers between schools and the question of whether students in disadvantaged areas have high-level teachers they need;

- Schools often have little direct involvement in teacher as

The analysis shows that issues related to the quantity of teachers and those related to their quality are obviously linked. To respond to teacher shortages, education systems often use a combination of short-term measures: they may lower the threshold of qualifications required for access to the profession, assigning teachers to teach subjects for which they are not fully qualified, increase the number of teaching hours allocated to teachers or increasing class sizes. Such measures, if they are used to ensure that there are no classes left without teachers, so that the shortage is not necessarily clear, however raise questions about the quality of teaching and learning.

At another level, just because a country is not facing a shortage of qualified teachers is not a guarantee that the faculty has the desired quality, especially if the selection process does not allow the best candidates are hired to teach courses. One could interpret the various findings and political concerns as signs of a long-term decline in the teaching profession. Gradually, as societies became more prosperous, the level of education has increased and employment opportunities have expanded, the attractiveness of the teaching career has narrowed in terms of ascent social and job security. General concerns about the challenges many schools face, relayed by often very negative echoes in the press, have hurt the attractiveness of the teaching vocation. Expectations and demands on schools have intensified while in many countries resources have not followed the same progression.

This finding confirms the results from Cohen's (1993) and Zeichner & Tabachnick's (1981) studies in which they found that the impact of teacher training was likely to be washed out by school teaching experiences. It also supports Pajares' (1992) view about the impact of teaching experience on teachers' beliefs and corroborates his conclusion that classroom behaviours are the results of beliefs being filtered by experience. It is interesting to note that though teacher training programs and teaching experience were acknowledged as belief formation factors based on the findings of this study, teaching experience appeared to be stronger both in terms of influencing existing beliefs and forming new beliefs. This may suggest that different belief formation factors vary in terms of their strength and influence on teachers belief system (Rokeach, 1968).

Teachers' teaching experience, personal research and vicarious experience or the influence of other fellow teachers have appeared to be very important in shaping and influencing teachers' beliefs about formative assessment. The majority of the teachers have recognized their teaching experience and personal research both as influencing factors and as sources from which their beliefs about formative assessment emanated. These findings confirm the findings from previous studies such as those of Brousseau, Book & Byers (1988), Zeuli (1993) and Wolters & Daugherty (2007) in which teaching experience and teachers' research were found to play a major role in constituting and influencing the teachers' belief system. As far as the interactive aspect of teaching is concerned, the influence of other teachers has also been acknowledged as a factor that influences teachers' beliefs about formative assessment. The majority of teachers seem to believe that observing their colleagues' teaching and discussing formative assessment with their senior teachers do influence their formative assessment beliefs. These results confirm Hagan et al.'s (1998) findings in which teachers' beliefs and self-efficacy were found to be influenced positively by watching videos on successful behavior management strategies and they are also in line with Bandura's (1977) self efficacy theory that which suggests that teachers' beliefs are influenced by their vicarious experiences and interaction with other teachers.

Professional development training has also been acknowledged as a factor that affects and influences the shaping and formation of teachers' beliefs about formative assessment. Most of the teachers in the LC context seem to think that their beliefs about formative assessment have been influenced by the professional development training they have had. Professional development training does not only seem to affect teachers' beliefs but it also influences their formative assessment practices. This may be inferred from teachers' responses to the statement 17 "I need training on how to use formative assessment effectively" as teachers think of training as a factor that may improve their implementation of formative assessment so that it becomes more effective. There was also made evident by the LC teachers during their Phase 1 interviews. For instance, Ali's (I6, 190-192) following quote implied that professional development training affected both his teaching beliefs and practices:

I mostly rely on my experience in the workshops that I have been to as these workshops [professional development training] influence my teaching and assessment style the most and I have transformed my entire teaching as a result.

These findings confirm the findings reported by Wixson and Pearson (1998) in which teachers' beliefs and approaches to teaching reading were changed due to a series of professional development workshops mandated by the State of Michigan in the US. They are also in line with Bandura's self-efficacy theory mentioned earlier in that LC teachers' beliefs and practices seemed to have been affected vicariously through their participation in professional development workshops as was made clear in the previous quote.

LC teachers were also found to acknowledge their discretion as well as their students' success or failure as factors that contributed to the shaping and formation of their beliefs about formative assessment. I argue here that discretion is a direct result of teaching experience and interaction with all the contextual factors available in the educational environment (Boote, 2006) such as students, curriculum, schedules, time constraints, policies, colleagues and so on. Just like teaching experience, discretion is so influential that it can easily either alter teachers' existing beliefs or give rise to some entirely new ones. This argument is supported by Murshid's (I10, 314-318) following quote:

... when you have discretion as to how to act in certain situations, you are likely to be influenced and act accordingly when you teach and assess your students. This gives you a chance to validate your discretion and if it proves successful, it becomes a teaching principle that guides your future teaching and assessment.

I also argue that the impact of students' success or failure on the shaping and formation of teachers' beliefs is indeed in line with Bandura's self-efficacy theory in that LC teachers regard success and failure as indicators of their successful or unsuccessful teaching. This particularly relates to Bandura's (1977) concept of 'performance accomplishments'(p. 139) which suggests that teachers judged their self-efficacy by evaluating whether they have been able to make a difference in students' learning. This is clearly reflected in Tahani's (I4, 108-109) following quote:

I sometimes regard students' success as a confirmation of the functionality of my methods and it also consolidates some of my previous beliefs about assessment.

It should be noted that when considered collectively, all the aforementioned belief formation factors correspond directly to the third dimension of Hill and McNamara's (2011) CBA framework (i.e. Teachers' theories and beliefs). However, as this dimension clearly fell short of explanations as to where teachers' beliefs come from, the findings from this study complements this dimension and provides an additional aspect which purely focuses of explaining the sources of teachers' beliefs. Hill and McNamara claim that their CBA framework is the most comprehensive framework available for investigating classroom-based assessment of which formative assessment is an indispensible form. However and based on the findings of this study, I argue that Hill and McNamara's framework did not address certain aspects such as sources of teachers' beliefs which are considered essential for any research that targets or investigates teachers' beliefs about classroom-based assessment. This is clearly evident in how the third and fourth dimensions of Hill and McNamara's framework purely focussed on the types of teachers' and learners' beliefs (i.e. beliefs about subject and content area, beliefs about second language learning and beliefs about nature of assessment) and completely overlooked the sources of those beliefs. I also contend that investigating teachers' beliefs about classroom-based assessment would not be complete without considering the sources from which those beliefs emanated or the factors that influence the formation of those beliefs. This is particularly important for understanding how teachers' beliefs are constructed and organized (Rokeach, 1972), for understanding the motives behind teachers' assessment practices (Ajzen, 2002; Richardson, 1996) and for successful introduction and implementation of assessment reforms (Bliem and Davinroy, 1997; Shim, 1999).

As far as the stability and permanence of formative assessment beliefs are concerned, the majority of teachers in the LC context seem to believe that their beliefs about formative assessment are constantly changing. For instance, these teachers think that their beliefs about formative assessment before and after they have joined the LC are not the same which reflects that their beliefs about formative assessment are not permanent or fixed. Based on teachers' overall responses to the questionnaire, it may be possible to describe teachers' beliefs about formative assessment as a living trait which is in constant interaction with the surrounding environment, circumstances, contexts, contents and persons and that this trait changes and modifies accordingly in order to fit within that environment and go along with the other aspects therein.

This study provided substantial evidence on the changing and adaptive nature of teachers' beliefs about formative assessment as was discussed in Chapter 7. For instance, the findings from this study show that teachers tend to change or modify some of their beliefs about implementing formative assessment in order to be in line with the institutional policy and official mandates or respond to some contextual factors imposed by educational environments such as nature and culture of students and level of students taught. This does not only confirm the role of institutional policy as a belief formation factor but also provides evidence that proves the instability or changing nature of teachers' beliefs about formative assessment. It also shows that these beliefs are in a constant process of dynamic interaction and negotiation with the surrounding contextual factors which often influences teachers' beliefs either by elimination or alteration (Ajzen, 2002; Bell and Cowie, 2001; Duffy and Anderson, 1984; Davis et al., 1993). This argument is supported by the model of conceptual change developed by Posner, Strike, Hewson, and Gertzog (1982) which suggests that new information is either incorporated into individuals' existing beliefs in a process called assimilation or replaces those individuals' existing beliefs in a process called accommodation. Both processes lead to change in belief with the former resulting into an alteration of beliefs and the latter resulting into an elimination of beliefs. The findings from this study also lends support to Bandura's (1995) social cognitive theory which suggests that both human behaviors and beliefs tend to change over time due to the accumulated experience and the constant social interaction with the surrounding environment.

The findings of this study therefore refute Block and Hazelip' (1972) and Vandeyar and Killen's (2006) claims that teachers' beliefs, especially about specific classroom practices such as assessment; are resistant to change. This has very important implications for educational decision and policy makers who intend to initiate changes or introduce reforms concerning assessment practices and implementations in their institutions as will be discussed in detail in Chapter 11.

Teachers in the LC context seem to hold strong beliefs about the importance of formative assessment to their teaching and assessment practices. The majority of the teachers think that formative assessment can inform their current teaching as well as help them improve and plan for their future teaching. They consider formative assessment as a means by which teachers identify where their students currently are in terms of the specified objectives and what they need to achieve the expected learning outcomes which is in line with how formative assessment was found to be used in previous studies (Baroudi, 2007, Black & Wiliam, 1998b; Torrance & Pryor, 1998). These findings also directly relates to Wiliam's (2006) suggestions about using formative assessment to bridge the gap between where the students are currently are and where they need to be.

As far as students' learning is concerned, the teachers believe that formative assessment is very important to their students' learning as it motivates them to work harder and helps them mature academically and take learning seriously. These findings corroborate findings from previous studies which highlighted the benefits that students get from using formative assessment (Cizek, 2010; OECD, 2005) and also confirm the use of formative assessment for learning and management purposes which was suggested in Hill and McNamara's (2011) CBA framework. The LC teachers also believe that formative assessment is a good indicator for students' learning and that it serves as a feedback tool which provides teachers with useful information about their students' progress. This in turn helps them to use divers teaching approaches, create better teaching materials, attend to their students' learning needs and preferences and modify their teaching to better suit the level of their students. The teachers also hold strong beliefs about the role that formative assessment plays in explaining the assessment culture and criteria of the university to students and this relates directly to Hill and McNamara's (2011) concept of using assessment in the 'socialization of learners into the local conventions of teaching and assessment' (p.409).

In general, teachers believe that formative assessment promotes a better learning environment and fosters autonomy among language learners. These finding confirm Gong and Hill's (2001) conclusion that formative assessment allows for more accurate evaluation of the students' real ability as well as their classroom performance and achievement of the target learning outcomes. Attending to students' needs and learning preferences by varying teaching approaches and materials during the implementation of formative assessment was reported as a great challenge in a large scale study conducted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD, 2005). The findings of this study however show that LC teachers regard the actual process of using formative assessment as an aiding tool that helps them be more attentive to their students' needs and learning preferences as well as check the functionality of their own teaching.

Teachers seem to acknowledge the difference between formative assessment and summative assessment in the LC context and when it comes to classroom assessment preferences, the majority of teachers seem to prefer formative assessment over summative assessment. This confirms the findings from previous studies (Meyer, 2009; Matsuura, Chiba and Hildebrandt, 2001; Steadman, 1998 and many other) where teachers' assessment preferences leaned more towards using formative assessment. LC teachers seem to acknowledge the non-threatening nature and continuity of formative assessment as opposed to summative assessment but the majority of them are not sure whether or not it is fairer than summative assessment. Those teachers who think of formative assessment as fairer than summative assessment attribute their opinions to the fact that formative assessment is integrated in the ongoing teaching and that it assesses students throughout the course and this view is similar to those of Yorke (2011), Popham (2008) and Shohamy (2001). In terms of importance, these teachers do not think of formative assessment as more important than summative assessment or as a substitute for it but they rather regard formative assessment as complementing summative assessment, a view similar to those of Harlen & Crick (2003), Sadler (1989) and others. This clearly reflects that teachers in the LC context, regardless of their various ethnic and educational backgrounds, hold strong views about the importance of summative assessment and think of it as indispensible to their teaching process. This may be partially attributed to the strong emphasis that the LC rules and policies place on summative assessment and to the strong status summative assessment has accrued over the years as was evident from some teachers' interview responses in this study especially those of Tahani, Jamal and Ruken.

Teachers also criticize the current imbalance in terms of marks allocated to summative and formative assessment and they stress that giving more emphasis to summative assessment is likely to result in less use of formative assessment and affect the validity and reliability of assessment results. Therefore, these teachers suggest a balanced assessment system in which formative and summative assessment are reasonably weighted, a system in which these two assessments work together to complement and validate each other's results. These suggestions agree to some extent with Yorke (2011) and Shohamy (2001) who recommended using formative assessment along with summative assessment and claimed that this use was adequate to fix the flaws in summative assessment.

As far as the reasons for using formative as

Writing Feedback / Practice Analysis Social worker in domestic violence setting [2]

Greetings reader,

I wrote my assignment essay but my teacher keeps saying that it is bad. Could you please read it and indicate whether the work is good and where should I improve? Thanks.

Whilst completing this analysis, the confidentiality of all service users has been maintained and respected. Therefore, all names that are included within this piece of work are false and the original names and identities of the service users have been anonymised.

service-user analysis

The aim of this practice analysis is to focus on the significant involvement that I had with a service-user whilst I was on my placement as a social work student on a real life social work setting. In this analysis, I hope to explore and analyse my practice skills, experiences, and feelings and seek to obtain better understanding of the issues in this situation. The names of the service users have been anonymised for maintaining confidentiality reasons and therefore, the service has been referred to as Layla*. Consent from the woman was taken verbally and in a written form, which was correspondingly saved on their file.

Analysis is considered as one of the essential skills for social work professionals, as it plays a major role in developing a comprehensive understanding of the issues those have been examined (Wilkins and Boahen, 2013). Whilst I am analysing the situation, I hope that I will demonstrate `reflective thinking', which includes a profound understanding of our self and other aspects and the way they impact on our professional practice (Walker, 2011).

Furthermore, another skill that is considered to be important in social work practice is the 'Critical reflection' and I will try to demonstrate that I have gained this skill throughout my practice learning experience. It is a technique that reveals implicit thinking, by this way we are able to tackle inequalities, and this will lead to the achievement of more positive outcomes (Pockett and Giles, 2008:1-2).

I will start my practice analysis by introducing the context and practice situation and then I will explore the impact that I had on the situation as a student social worker. I will also describe the way I have managed the concerns of values and the way I have applied the ethics of social justice in this particular situation.

Moreover, I will demonstrate the way I understood and applied theories, methods and legislation in order to resolve the situation. Last, I will reflect a critical perspective on my self-learning needs and I will explain my perceptions along with the way through which I have learnt to use all this knowledge into my professional development as social worker.

The agency where I worked, is a community based voluntary sector agency, which is regarded as an experienced service provider in the city relating to the recovery of domestic abuse. Although majority of the service users are female, still the social profile of the community is very diverse with different age, ethnicities, cultural and religious backgrounds and their economic status.

The agency received a referral from Leicester social services in order to secure safe accommodation for woman and her two daughters. Layla* was originally from Afghanistan, but later she had moved to Holland with her family, where she had obtained her legal status. She was kept in temporary accommodation, before being admitted into refugee. She has disclosed to the family support worker, based at her daughter's school that she was suffering domestic violence from her husband.

A safety plan was set to help Layla* so that she is supported from crisis intervention which helped her to deal with this massive transition relating to the transfer or relocate to the family home. On admittance to refugee, she was supported to complete a risk assessment, where she has to experience high risk and would have been referred as Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (MARAC). However, this has already been conducted by the Leicester Police.

The outcome of this process was more about information sharing as the service-user was no longer in her danger area. While Layla* was in temporary emergency accommodation, she was supported by a solicitor to apply and obtain a non-molestation order, which purposes to keep the perpetrator away from contacting her and her children and keep them safe.

Layla* was never allowed a phone; she was given a new phone by social care, so they could remain in contact with her. Once at refuge she was supported to block her bank card and change her address. The perpetrator had kept her bankcard, using financial abuse to control over her. Layla* was supported to ring the Netherland's Consulate in Birmingham in order to obtain an appointment to apply for renewing her passport and identification card. This is important for her perspective as without these she could not have receive a new bankcard. Layla* applied for all relevant benefits but she was advised that she is not eligible for housing benefit, due to her legal status. However, funding for her accommodation was secured by Leicester social care.

Layla's* husband has been diagnosed with blood cancer, which he would try to blame on her and cause her emotional distress. Staff conducted a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD7) mental health Assessments with her and she has revealed of both higher depression and anxiety so she was signposted to the local GP and referred to our Agency Counseling Service.

The service user is struggling with her religious beliefs and culture. She knows that based on Islamic culture if the wife leaves her husband, she should leave her children behind too with her husband and his family. However, she was warned by social services regarding the domestic violence allegations, that if she did not leave the family home to safeguard her children, they should be seeking legal advice to remove them for their own safety. One of Layla's daughters has learning difficulties but in the present day context, she has secured a place in local school, and has special support in place.

It is notable that for a period of 10 years Layla's husband perpetrated domestic abuse against her, which included emotional harm, control and physical violence with aggression. It is also found that this domestic violence is directed to her older daughter Amina*, if she intervened during domestic incidents.

Domestic abuse is a significant failure in parenting, which entails failure to protect the child's care and failure to protect the child's emotional and physical development. Moreover, Layla was supported to start ESOL English and math's course at the local Children Centre, where her youngest daughter attends nursery.

In the current day context, there is an ongoing court case in Derby County Court, where Layla's* husband has applied for contact with his children, and she attended the court. However, Layla's* husband verbally abused her in their native language, which was witnessed and recorded but the proceedings are still ongoing regarding contact. This whole situation had left Layla* feeling extremely vulnerable, helpless and confused and her mental and emotional well-being and family-life deteriorated significantly.

At the time, I had begun working with Layla* she was already supported with most of her urgent needs. Prior to meeting with Layla*, I researched literature related to Domestic Violence in order to develop better understanding of the nature and realised that although this is a social issue, which has been deeply rooted into the British History dating back to the 1395, when the first case was registered (Bowen, 2011:1). In addition to the disparity, women are twice more likely to be a victim of domestic violence than men in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics (Travis, 2015). On a global level, the World Health Organization reports that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime, and as many as 38% of murders of women are committed by an intimate partner (2015).

By understanding the issues surrounding domestic violence, and the deeply-rooted factors underpinning it, social workers will be better prepared to help victims of violence and sexual abuse. From the viewpoint of a social worker, the statutory duty when dealing with cases of Domestic Violence, the only aspect that comes into action, when there are children involved. In Layla's case, we have put her on the list and will be providing with counselling, as she is a parent of a child in need if it is considered that the service is beneficial to the child (Working Together to Safeguard Children, 2013).

I first met Layla* shadowing a co-worker in one-to-one session, where I reviewed her case notes, and I decided that the 'exchange model of assessment' would be good in order to gain a holistic understanding of the wider context in order to help her to find new way to address her issues (Goodman and Trowler, 2012:143).

By using the exchange model, I acknowledged Layla's expertise in her own life and problems and is set to support her to think through her own problems (Beckett, 2010:35). Later in one of our one-to-one sessions I encouraged Layla to try and identify some of the sources of support such as family and friends and see how they perceive the situation (Wilson et al 2011:289).

I acknowledge the fact that the exchange model requires a great experience on my behalf, which I lack, as I am student. However, I am learning how to use it; therefore, I tried to gain more knowledge in this model beforehand so I feel more confident. However, exchange model is extremely useful whilst working with vulnerable people like Layla*, as it allowed me to empower her to express her wishes (O'Hagan, 1996:135).

The impact of my role as an advocate in Layla's* situation was significant, as it gave me the chance to oversee all the support and services, which she was being already provided with and therefore what other service were available for her and her children. Layla's* case is complex and therefore If I felt that her needs were not being met I would certainly take action and negotiate for the requirements to be done so additional services to be added where possible (Wilks, 2012:49). Whilst working with Layla, I reflected on how important language skills are, as her native language is Afghan Persian and she does not speak fluent English, she struggles to express her feelings sometimes due to language barriers.

Advocating for Layla* enabled her voice to be heard and empowered her to move forward with her life, to provide her daughters with safe lifestyle and to improve her language skills so that she can start looking for employment when she is prepared (PCF 5.5).

Layla* became really upset due to the fact that her daughters were still allowed to have contact with their father regardless of the domestic violence that they have witnessed. In one of the sessions we had, she was visibly upset and distressed and stated that if it was not for her religious belief and her daughters, she would go on to commit suicide. She was in such a distress that she would not calm down and I had to explain to her that I would have to disclose this information and that the confidentiality agreement, which we have signed at her admittance, covered such disclosures (Data Protection Act, 1998).

During the whole process, I realized that in order to support Layla*, I will need to attain a Greater understanding of her situation. Furthermore, while working with Layla and other professionals, I have had the chance to recognize the domination of the immigration and social systems as her status is of an EU Citizen. However, because she is separated not divorced therefore she is entitled on benefits and child tax credits, which were not paid to her, so I had to work with other professionals in order to appeal and she was granted the support that she needed.

Being a social worker, the prior duty of me is to help Layla to lead her life with self-respect and dignity. In order to assure the same to Layla, I need to focus on her needs and current situation and provide her with support as per her mental and physical health requirements. Besides, I need to provide greater focus on the regeneration of her point of view towards life (Reamer, 1998: 495).

On the other hand, I need to focus on her nationality status, as she is actually a citizen from Afghanistan and has migrated to England. Layla and her family are currently registered under the refugee department of the UK. Therefore, my prime responsibility is to provide her with a national identity that would help me in finding a suitable accommodation for her. Considering the conservative mindset of Layla, she does not realise that her husband has raped her since their marriage. On the other hand, her husband is suffering from cancer, wherein she has been playing the role of her husband's fulltime caregiver. Besides, her husband is also mentally abusing her, as he thinks that Layla is the main reason behind his illness. By reviewing the overall scenario, I have come to learn that Layla and her both daughters need to re-establish their lifestyle and leave her husband immediately, withdrawing from these stereotypical views. Therefore, to provide a safe accommodation and other social services to Layla and her two daughters, I have decided to shift them to Coventry, where they will be able to lead their life in a safer environment (Orme et. al., 1998: 94).

In order to support Layla with safe accommodation, I have to focus over several dimensions of the society that can be highly useful for my practice purposes. I, being a professional social worker, have developed a team of five members, where the role of every person will be to support her and help her to lead a happier and healthier life. While supporting Layla, all five team members will be emphasizing the different problems that she has been suffering since last few years. Initially, I have appointed a financial planner who will provide better suggestion to Layla regarding her monetary expenditures. On the other hand, another member will provide cultural support to Layla and her two daughters in this nation (Goodmark, 2009: 1).

The social supervisor, who is responsible for providing cultural support to the victims of domestic violence, will thereby focus on their individuality and should respect their religious values. Besides, the social supervisor will also provide support to Layla considering her age and her cultural background. While the supervisor, responsible to provide support to Layla regarding her safe accommodation with respect to her religion, ethnicity and cultural background, will also participate in this session. This particular session will be helpful for me to gain knowledge regarding different cultural aspects and procedures of treating those challenges. Therefore, it will also be helpful in enhancing my personal development as a social worker.

As per the current legislative norms established by the government of the UK, domestic violence has been recognised as a major peril that has been hampering the self-respect of several people. It can also be identified that recently the UK government has declared domestic violence as a criminal activity. Moreover, due to the frequent occurrence of domestic violence within the society, it has been influencing the government to take proper measurements regarding the aforementioned case. Furthermore, being a major advocate of Layla, I suggest her to make a complaint against her husband in the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), to take her daughters' custody. Besides, most of the social service providers and anti-violence activists are conducting large numbers of researches, which will be able to provide effective prevention support by delivering effective interventions to the victims, assuring their recovery (Sakamoto, 2007: 520). To be noted in this context, the restorative justice system has been playing a supportive role for designing it as a legal case within the court. On the other hand, it is also important to note that restorative justice system helps social workers to conduct an informal interaction process with the victims, with the intention of better understanding regarding the entire situation being faced by the victims (Coker, 2002: 130).

I would also like to play the role of Layla's advocate in this situation, where I will focus on the various dimensions of this case. In the discussion session conducted between Layla and my team, I learnt that she has been socially isolated, as her husband forced her to. As she reported, Layla's husband did not allow her to talk to anyone else, she was also not allowed to go out of the house, except to leave her daughters to school. Moreover, Layla's husband also dominated her and forced her to follow traditional orthodox principles of Islam and partially that of Taliban (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 2001).

The anti-oppressive practice is recognised as an important part of the social welfare system that has been used for dealing with all the oppressions, observed within the society and in the life of every individual. The anti-oppressive practice is an innovative approach that has been used for treating a large number of domestic violence conducts reported within the society. Besides, this model is mainly involved in enhancing the empowerment of the service users' identity within the society (Gay, 2015: 9). With the help of anti-oppressive model, social workers will be able to highlight several observable points those should be focused by the social workers while they will be supporting victims for their re-socialization. With the help of anti-oppressed model, the cultural and mental supports will also be provided to those victims (Cook, 2006).

Conclusively, by reviewing the case of Layla, it can be identified that the domestic violence has become one of the most concerned factor among the several people. It can herewith be noted that domestic violence has been playing a significant role in hampering social harmony within the society. It elaborates about the miserable situation of Layla and her two daughters. Since the initial days of her marriage, she has been experiencing domestic violence that will hamper her self-dignity and self-respect largely.

Looking forward to your comments.

Writing Feedback / A large explosion at a COMAH site in a heavily populated area - detailed plan of the action [3]

Check my article and tell me how can I upgrade it more, thanks!

Scenario: a large fire at a COMAH site in a heavily populated area has resulted in a large explosion and a release of a large smoky black plume containing substantial levels of ethyl benzene.

Your task: provide a detailed plan of the actions required below, that would be required following this incident. You will need to consider information on ethyl benzene involved.

(a) Information required undertaking a comprehensive risk assessment.
(b) A communication statement to be provided to the local media.
(c) Consider both the immediate and longer term response.
This work should include references to the relevant literature, especially peer reviewed, books and government websites

Introduction
Assessment and reduction of risks and nuisances related to incidences of gaseous emissions from site explosions represents one of the challenges of environmental and health management of sites with a substantial fraction of harmful chemicals. Incident Management and Reporting, even in best-controlled environment can be challenging and lead to (additional) costs. To reduce these losses, knowledge of and on such events and circumstances under which they occur is essential. Through a learning process which can be learned from mistakes, 'near misses' and other unexpected events, new knowledge and experience is preserved (Paustenbach, Bass, and Price, 1993). The diagram below details the action management

a. Information required in order to undertake a comprehensive risk assessment.
At the onset, it is important to understand what ethylbenzene is if its exposure incident is to be successfully managed. Ethylbenzene is a colorless liquid whose smells resembles that of gasoline. As a matter of fact, scientists report that a normal human can smell as little as 2 parts of ethylbenzene in a million parts of air (2 ppm). It is gaseous at room temperature and highly flammable.

According to accessible surface emissions standards as defined by the Environment Agency (EA):
Useful data
It is important to discern if the emissions produced are for permanent cover of temporary covers. For permanent covers: Standard issue is 0.001mg/m2/s ethylbenzene while for temporary covers: standard issue is 0.1 mg/m2/s ethylbenzene. As a result, consistent monitoring is advised. If measured ethylbenzene concentration is higher than 100 and less than 1000 ppmv cracks, a second measurement is required using "flow box" (detection range: 0.00005 to 5 mg / m2 / s) for realization of emission mapping and verification of values as well as implementation of corrective actions where thresholds are exceeded (Snyder and Kocsis, 2011).

Transmission
Additionally, important to understand is that when ethylbenzene enters the atmosphere it easily moves and spreads through the air and soil and can even contaminate groundwater (Duarte-Davidson, Courage, Rushton, & Levy, 2001).

Breakdown of ethylbenzene
In air, it is broken down in less than 3 days with help of sunlight. In water, it is broken down through its interaction with naturally present compounds in water. Bacteria soil also breaks down ethylbenzene.

Entry into human body
It is also important to take stock of ways through which ethylbenzene enters the body. When one breathes air that contain ethylbenzene, it enters rapidly enters the body through the lungs. Additionally, ethylbenzene present in food or water rapidly enters the body through the digestive tract (Ross, 2006). Further, the gas may penetrate the body through skin when one comes in contact with liquids that contain ethylbenzene (Blank and McAuliffe, 2012).

Exit of human body
Once in human body, ethylbenzene is broken down into other chemicals. Most of these other chemicals leave your body in the urine within 2 days. Small amounts of ethylbenzene can also leave your body through the lungs and in feces. This is however only the case for non-toxic levels of ethylbenzene.

b. A communication statement to be provided to the local media.
An explosion accompanied with ethylbenzene no doubts amounts to release of toxic gas to the atmosphere. As a result, it is important to release a comprehensive communication statement to be channeled to the surrounding population via the local media (IPCS, 2013). The communication should cover important aspects. A sample communication statement is hereby presented.

"Attention to everyone, please note that there has been a large fire outbreak at the COMAH site. Sadly, as a result of the explosion, there has been release of substantial amounts of ethyl benzene. All people are advised to stay as afar from the site as reasonably possibly. Please note that uptake of the substance into the body can occur through the following ways;

- Skin (coming into contact with contaminated substance)
- Mouth (eating contaminated substance)
- Breathing the gas directly
As a result, any kind of close proximity to the gas can have adverse effects on one's health (Srbova, Teisinger, and Skamovsky, 2010).
For those that have already come into contact with the gas, it is important to contact the nearest health facility for further guidelines.
c. Consider both the immediate and longer term response.
Typical response plan for the ethylbenzene exposure is provided below,

It is also important to have succinct understanding of the immediate responses required as soon as the incident occurs and so are long-term response measures.

Immediate responses
- All people should be evacuated from the source of exposure.
- Those with ethylbenzene skin contact should remove the affected clothes, wash affected areas using Luke warm water and soap for between 10 and 15 minutes and then seek medical advice

- Those with ethylbenzene contact in the eyes should remove contact lenses if any, and irrigate affected eye using lukewarm water for between 10 - 15 minutes and then seek medical advice.

- For those that have inhaled the gas, seek medical advice immediately
- Create a barrier to cordon off the affected area from entry by unaffected persons
For those assisting in mitigation,
- Use normal foam
- Wear liquid-tight chemical-protective clothing as well as breathing apparatus.
- Spillages and decontamination run-offs needs to be prevented from entering drains as well as watercourses.
- A gas-tight chemical protective suit that has breathing apparatus is recommended
Long-term responses
- Measure levels of surface concentration regularly
- Follow-up on the affected people
- Site reconstruction and detoxification
d. Implications on the environment, including AIR, WATER, LAND AND TOWARDS PUBLIC HEALTH (consider both SHORT TERM and LONG TERM following the incident)
Ethylbenzene is very mobile in the environment and as such, can spread quickly and easily in the air from other sources of pollutants. The four main ways of its spread in the environment are the same channels as toluene.

Air: Ethylbenzene, because of its physicochemical properties is only in vapor form when present in the atmosphere (INERIS, 2005). It is mainly degraded by reaction with hydroxyl radicals formed by photochemical reactions. Its life in the air is less than three days (INERIS, 2005a). The average ethylbenzene concentrations in ambient air are hardly documented.

Water: In water, ethylbenzene has the physicochemical characteristics required to be adsorbed to the particulate phase (Saada et al., 2005). It has the property of floating on water because of its lower density than water and its low solubility (CSST, 2007a). It evaporates from surface water (INERIS, 2005a). Its half-life biodegradation is about 40 days in surface waters and is also anaerobically biodegradable (INERIS, 2005a).

Soils: The mobility of ethylbenzene in soil is moderate and volatilization in moist soil is an important process (Saada et al., 2005). Ethylbenzene is biodegradable. Its half-life varies from six days to 220 days (Saada et al., 2005).

Bio-environment: Studies in fish and shellfish have shown that ethylbenzene BAF were very low (INERIS, 2005a). For example, the bioaccumulation factor for rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss sky is 1.0 (Roubal et al., 1978 and INERIS, 2005a). For the mollusk Tapes semidecussa, bioaccumulation factor varies between 4 and 5 (INERIS, 2005a). Ethylbenzene is not considered a bioaccumulative substance for these species (INERIS, 2005a). However, INERIS has calculated that the bioaccumulation factor of ethylbenzene is 94 from its Kow. Ethylbenzene is moderately absorbed by fat and can accumulate in animals (Environment Canada 2004a).

The main effect of ethylbenzene vapors is irritation of eyes, nose and mucous membranes at concentrations of about 200 x 10ł mg / mł air (INERIS, 2005a). The highest concentrations can cause depression of the central nervous system and liver and kidney damage transients (INERIS, 2005a). Effects such as drowsiness, headache, dizziness and vertigo were observed in volunteers exposed to concentrations above 100 x 10ł mg / mł air (CSST, 2007a). As the concentration increases, there is a tearing and irritation of the nasal mucosa and upper respiratory tract. This effect becomes intolerable from 5000 x 10ł mg / mł air (INRS, 2007b). After repeated or prolonged contact, ethylbenzene has a degreasing effect on the skin; it can cause redness and cracking (CSST, 2007a).

Various epidemiological studies have been conducted in workers exposed to solvents including ethylbenzene, but their interpretation is limited by the simultaneous exposure to other solvents, lack of exposure data and divergent results (CSST 2007a). For example, two studies give conflicting results on hematological effects (hemoglobin and lymphocytes) for the estimated exposure levels below the standards (CSST, 2007a). As Ethylbenzene is rarely used alone, a large number of non-cancer effects from acute exposure to ethylbenzene were attributed to xylenes mixture with which it is in technical grade solvents used in industrial products and consumer products (Health Canada 2007). Simultaneous exposure of ethylbenzene (150 x 10ł mg / mł of air) with m-xylene (150 x 10ł mg / mł of air) leads to a decrease (mutual inhibition) excretion of mandelic acids, phénolglyoxylique and methylhippuric in urine (CSST, 2007a).

In humans, no association was found between the occurrence of cancer and pulmonary exposure to ethylbenzene (INERIS, 2005a). The only available study showed that 200 workers exposed to pulmonary ethylbenzene for 20 years showed no excess of malignant tumors in the last ten years (and Bardodej Cirek 1988 quoted by INERIS, 2005a). In this study, concentrations of ethylbenzene which employees were exposed are not known and followed for 20 years seems long enough to detect tumors long latency in humans. No studies on the carcinogenicity of ethylbenzene oral or dermal route are available humans (INERIS, 2005a).

Environment Canada indicated that ethylbenzene did not cause cancer in humans; by cons, experimental studies have shown that the presence of ethylbenzene in air resulting in adverse effects such as the development of cancers of the liver and lung in mice and kidney cancer in rats exposed to high concentrations (Health Canada, 2007). The concentrations used in these studies are much higher than those to which Canadians are usually exposed (Health Canada, 2007). Based on sufficient evidence in experimental animals and inadequate evidence in humans, IARC concluded that ethylbenzene is possibly carcinogenic to humans (Health Canada, 2007). No studies on the carcinogenicity of ethylbenzene by oral, dermal available for humans.

Few studies have been done on the toxicity of ethylbenzene in invertebrates, vertebrates and plants; there is none of its toxicity on soil microbes (Environment Canada 2004a). One study showed that earthworms can die if exposed to ethylbenzene in soil and lettuce and radish seeds exposed to ethylbenzene will germinate less (Environment Canada 2004a). Ethylbenzene has a low acute toxicity in animals, regardless of the route of exposure. It is essentially narcotic and irritating. Laboratory studies have found that ethylbenzene reduces the concentration of dopamine in the brain of the rabbit (Environment Canada and Health Canada 2004a, 2007). The minimum inhalation LC50 is 17200 mg / mł in rats for a four-hour exposure (Health Canada, 2007). The rats are then subjected to irritation of the eyes and nose and a loss of control over their movements and dizziness (Environment Canada 2004a). Following exposure of longer duration, the rat liver increases in weight and blood platelets become more numerous (Environment Canada, 2004a and 2005a INERIS). There are no studies of the effects of ethylbenzene on livestock, wildlife and birds (Environment Canada 2004a).