ABSTRACT
Researchers who have investigated INSET/professional development have come up with varying taxonomies of providers (including who the provider is, where training/development takes place, what happens, and how long the development activity lasts). Thus, Day (1997:47) talks of seven different kinds of support (shortburst courses, colleagueship, sharing practices, lighthouse [illuminative] experiences, external consultancy, external in-depth intensive courses and external long award bearing courses). Harland et al (1999:26), in locating the provision of school training days, identify five sources (LEA advisers, external consultants, liaison with other schools, pyramid days [with feeder primary and secondary schools] and days jointly organized/funded with other schools). Brown, Edmonds and Lee (2001:16) give two lists of possible providers given by two different groups in their research on INSET and the LEA. The LEA respondents named 13 providers (one-off conferences, seminars and workshops; non-accredited academic and professional programmes; in school training; action research; visits to other schools; networking forums, in-class support monitoring colleagues and observation). The school respondents answers are identical apart from also including ‘mentoring colleagues’.
