| Abstract | In 2012, Education Secretary Michael Gove announced that Initial Teacher
Training (ITT) would henceforth be school-led. At the time of his announcement,
ITT had been school-based, which itself followed upon an earlier, school-centred
framework. The implementation of Gove's announcement fundamentally involved
a shift that placed mentors, who are drawn from a pool of practising teachers, at
the heart of the process of training future primary school teachers. While such
changes in education may or may not be warranted, education professionals face
upheaval during such periods of transition. The shift to school-led ITT takes place
alongside another significant change, where the method of assessment that is
used to evaluate pupils' learning is undergoing radical revision.
This project takes place during this period of extensive adjustment. While it does
not question mentors' efficacy in the previous, school-based framework, it argues
that mentors are not currently equipped to handle the onus of responsibility placed
upon them in the new, school-led framework. Examining these issues from within
the workplace, it adopts an Action Research approach that draws upon existing
and emerging literature as well as upon the experiences and perspectives of
diverse education professionals involved in ITT. It ends with a series of findings, its
key recommendation being that while training programmes for potential primary
school teachers are being redesigned within the new ITT framework, mentors
themselves need a structured training programme to prepare them to carry out
effectively their reconceptualised role. This study provides a glimpse into my
workplace, the Forest Independent Primary Collegiate (FIPC), which serves as a
case study of a changing ITT environment, at a time when the landscape of
education is changing to become more collaborative, with alliances being formed
among myriad institutions involved in ITT. As an ITT provider myself, I believe that
this study presents a singular viewpoint on a topical issue of great importance in
the field of primary education. |
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