The transformative nature of the special school placement: reporting ‘insistent’ data from emerging teachers and exploring an agenda for future research

Abstract

Emerging teachers undergoing initial teacher education programmes and given the opportunity to engage in a teaching placement in special provisions settings consistently report that they find the experience transformative. Over eight years, informal and often unprompted data emerged which ‘insisted’ upon reporting and suggested that the special school placement was transformative and differed in some significant features from other placements. There are themes of emerging teachers’ confidence in their ability to include, awareness of and changes to attitudes towards inclusion, creative teaching methods (including altered approaches towards differentiation) and child‐centred approaches contrasted with what was perceived to be a more restrictive mainstream curriculum. Alterations could be argued to include changes at the level of identity, attitude and in the acquisition of skills. Arguments are presented for the inclusion of such a placement as a required element within initial teacher education.