THE EXETER SCHOOL-BASED PGCE - AN ALTERNATIVE INITIAL TEACHER-TRAINING MODEL

During the 1980s in England several initial teacher training institutions independently developed school-based initial teacher training (ITT) courses. This coincided with the Conservative government's political advisers' pressing for such a move and the government subsequently decreeing that all 1-year postgraduate students will spend the bulk of their time in schools. For the past decade at the School of Education, University of Exeter, an unreported History PGCE course has been run along these lines using long-established relationships with local school History departments. Close involvement with a school equips each student with the set of immediate skills and instrumental competencies they need to survive. School-experience is fully integrated with the university course. It aims to develop in students the complementary attitudes, values, knowledge and understanding of the reflective practitioner which are seminal to their long-term membership of a profession.