ABSTRACT
The qualitative data accumulated through the Leverhulme Study reveal, quite strikingly, the important part played by teachers in curriculum making. Teachers are not merely points in some conduit l inking central ised prescriptions to learners’ desks. They are not technicians, faithfully acting out the detail of prescribed blueprints. Rather, they ‘act upon’ prescriptions in order to create learning opportunities. They exercise judgement and discretion in the light of their interpretations of the broad aims of prescriptions, in accordance with what they perceive to be the needs of the students in their charge and within the confines of what they understand to be significant constraints. How teachers act, as has been amply demonstrated in the last three chapters, is very much affected by the views of knowledge and learning which they bring to their work.
