From the archive: Initial teacher education (ITE) – then and now

To celebrate the many years that Margaret Roberts has been associated with the GA Teacher Education Working Group (TEWG, now TESIG (Teacher Education Special Interest Group)) I looked back to see when the TEWG was first established. (p. 19) As well as concerns about the impact on geography ITE of the recently introduced National Curriculum (NC), the conference raised concerns about the suggested changes to ITE in Circular 9/92 (DfE, 1992): ... schools should play a much larger part in ITT as full partners of higher education institutions (p. 2). The workshops produced a number of recommendations: 1 Coherence between HEI and partner schools in terms of provision of experiences and shared philosophical perspective must be ensured through: * student entitlement, specified through minimum contact time with mentors and the range of student experiences * quality control systems in place to ensure experiences in one school match those in another. 2 Training of school-based supervisors in the training of teachers and in the teaching of geography; also in the area of competencebased assessment. 3 Use of resources - buying timetable time for mentors. 4 Operational issues - the need for students to undertake fieldwork teaching with students.