ABSTRACT
Initial teacher education (ITE) programmes follow a national curriculum linked to regulated standards for the award of qualified teacher status. These standards have increasingly been influenced by the national strategy 'Removing Barriers to Achievement', which held the expectation that all teachers would teach children identified as having special educational needs. During this time, ITE struggled to keep pace with these developments, despite recommendations for all programmes to contain a core element of 'SEN curriculum'. Changes occurred as the Training and Development Agency (TDA) started to work with ITE providers to develop and pilot new initiatives arising from Removing Barriers to Achievement. These included the design of new resource materials for tutors and their students on ITE programmes and 'specialised placements' in special schools or units. After evaluation, the TDA provided ITE tutors with an SEN and/or Disabilities Training Toolkit for Primary teaching programmes, followed by another version in 2009 for Secondary programmes.
