ABSTRACT
Teaching and learning are currently high on everyone’s agenda. In the UK, as in many other countries, there is a national drive for ‘improved’ teaching and learning, which has added urgency from the need for national competitiveness and well-being, concern at the performance of British children and workers compared to those in Germany, Switzerland, and, until recently, countries in the Pacific Rim, and vague feelings that things ought to be different in the new millennium. Developing also is a renewed focus on learning. We have ‘learning schools’, ‘learning organizations’, ‘learning communities’, ‘learning societies’, ‘lifelong learning’, and even a ‘learning age’. Suddenly everybody, every group and every institution is learning.
