ABSTRACT
The role of school-based work in learning to teach is most often taken as self-evident. Recent pronouncements and consultation documents emphasize the need for student-teachers to spend more time in the classroom with the assumption that learning takes place through working alongside experienced teachers. This movement is accompanied by an interest in expressing teaching as competence statements (DES, 1990; Dunne and Harvard, 1992a, 1992b; Dunne, 1992; Harvard, 1992; Whitty, 1991); in the role of a mentor (Harvard and Dunne, 1992); and in the relationship between schools and training institutions. As a normal part of course development, all of these points were being addressed by the institution before and at the time of this study. There had been successive attempts to create a set of criteria for teaching practice which adequately summarized the expectations for primary students’ development in initial training which on the one hand was faithful to a view of teaching as a complex and constructive process, and on the other hand was acceptable to schools on a daily basis. One initiative had been widely criticized by practising teachers for not providing usable criteria. A further attempt is outlined below in the context of an experimental study. The role of the supervisor is discussed against this background.
