The Changing Nature of Training for Teaching in Primary Schools in England: Contexts and Curriculum

Abstract

Initial Teacher Education (ITE) has long been a site of contestation between diverse academic and professional interests and national and local governmental influences. ITE's place as a ‘gatekeeper’ to the teaching profession means that it has had a pivotal role in determining the nature of teachers and consequently of schooling. When the education system as a whole has been under scrutiny, ITE has been subject to changes, often radical or rapid. At certain points in the history of ITE such changes have involved the state taking control of key aspects of teacher education. At the present time state intervention in determining the nature and structure of ITE has reached unprecedented levels. ITE has undergone radical changes, driven by six major circulars specifically on ITE since 19841, and by a series of equally radical changes to the school sector. In 1999 teacher education departments have to follow mandatory curricula for ITE, imposed through Circulars 10/97 and 4/98 (DfEE, 1997, 1998). In an area which has traditionally had an ill‐defined knowledge base, there are now defined curricula which specify the core knowledge areas to be addressed in teacher preparation. The funding and much of the structure of ITE is controlled by the Teacher Training Agency (TTA), established in 1994 as a government quango to oversee teacher education. ITE, like schooling, is inspected by the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) under similar frameworks to those used for school inspections. 1DES, 1984, 1989; DfE, 1992, 993; DfEE, 1997, 1998.