ABSTRACT
Huge amounts of time and effort go into getting from the start to the finish of an AST process-from preparing an application, until the stage when the selection panel makes its recommendation. Teachers talk about ‘fifty to one hundred hours of preparation’, of ‘three months’ work’, and of how the norms of social and classroom life ‘collapse’ under the sheer intensity of the process. There appears little doubt that the procedure for getting ‘advanced’ teaching skills articulated and recognised is a huge undertaking for teachers and others co-opted into the process.
