Change and Innovation in Schools

The code of Practice on the Identification and Assessment of Special Educational Needs (1994) places new responsibility on the special needs coordinator (or SENCo) for its implementation and subsequent management. Many additional duties, as well as significant changes to existing practices, are required. This paper reports the experiences of a small group of SENCos in adopting the new arrangements. They suggest that the Code brings both benefits, including enhanced status and more effective provision for their pupils, and drawbacks, notably the failure to provide non‐teaching time for Code‐related administration.     

Child Protection: The Continuing Need for Training and Policies in Schools

This paper is about teachers and primary school pupils who have led or taken part in meditation classes at school. It discusses their perceptions of the relationship between meditation and learning. Three different categories of perceived benefit are examined; readiness for learning, enhanced creative expression, and spiritual development. After this a case is made for the use of experiential learning models as a structure for enhancing the benefit gained through meditation. The paper concludes with some observations about the potential of meditation in the school setting. Much of what is said could apply to the secondary setting.     

A review of issues in continuing professional development in teaching,nursing and radiography

This paper examines developments in the provision of continuing professional development (CPD) for school teachers, nurses and radiographers in the UK. The focus is on current developments which are located in the context of models of professional development. Three major issues are identified: funding/resourcing, curriculum coherence and the relationship to practice. The latter raised further issues for consideration including the accreditation of practice, the development of reflective practice and the moves towards research‐based and evidence‐based practice. The paper concludes that CPD is a comparatively under‐researched activity and that the approaches to CPD in the three occupational groups have significant similarities. Furthermore the existing literature has not located CPD in the context of current thinking regarding learning organizations and post‐technocratic models of professional development.