Policy and Practice in the Professional Development of Teachers

ABSTRACT

This paper is intended as a contribution towards understanding recent developments in government policy for teacher education by providing an account of the dilemmas and issues the authors are encountering in the course of developing practice in three key areas in the education of teaching. These are: the implementation of school‐based forms of initial teacher education in partnership with schools; the development of higher education involvement in and responsibility for teachers’ professional development in their first year of teaching; the development of profiles of competence by which to evaluate and assess the progress of beginning teachers. Opportunities for the creation of coherent, principled progression in the early years of teaching are identified, as are sources of confusion and tension in current policy changes.     

A SKEPTICAL EDUCATION

A bstract .  In a turn on the familiar notion that learning is inquiry, Dennis Senchuk suggests in this essay that an otherwise exemplary educational curriculum could benefit from the inclusion of some distinctively skeptical modes of inquiry. Senchuk construes two pertinent varieties of skepticism as inquiries into inquiry — one involving an inquiry into the methodology of inquiry, and the other focused argumentatively on specific outcomes of inquiry. The author stops short of interpreting these skeptical modes as the core of critical thinking, but sees them as affording opportunities for valuable linkages between philosophy and education.     

Quality risk management. Modernising the architecture of quality assurance

‘There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music’ (John Keats)     

Can serious reading disorders be investigated and diagnosed by secondary school SEN staff?

By the time they transfer to secondary school, most young people who have serious obstacles to becoming literate will have been identified. The necessary procedures will have been completed by school and LEA staff to obtain a statement of SEND or EHC plan. Not all children are this fortunate however. Financial constraints, home, family and sometimes school circumstances may result in a child being overlooked. This article discusses the feasibility of conducting a detailed analysis of a child’s difficulties in Year 7 of the comprehensive school.     

Learning and the ‘F’ Word

Abstract

The article looks at the ‘At‐Risk Program’ set up as a collaboration between teachers in elementary and secondary public schools and the staff of Indiana University.