School-based Initial Teacher Training: Squeezing a quart into a pint pot or a square peg into a round hole?

Abstract

This article provides a comparative study of the time demands created by basing initial teacher training (ITT) in secondary and in primary schools. It has been written in response to Cross's study of primary ITT ( Mentoring & Tutoring , 7(1)) and makes use of findings from a survey of secondary ITT in which the author was involved. Although the two studies on which this article is based are different in their scope, scale and methodology, their findings regarding the central importance of time to the viability of school-based ITT are remarkably consistent. Both highlight the way in which successful training depends on mentors giving far more than the official minima of mentoring time to which student teachers are entitled by courses. They also demonstrate the tension which exists between 'school time' (i.e. the timetable) and the time requirements of ITT.