ABSTRACT
The University of Oxford has, over a period of ten years, developed a partnership with schools in the initial training of teachers, on the basis of which it is possible to reflect on the merits of the recent Conservative Government policy. That policy is expressed in the statement that ‘the Government has decided that…schools should play a much larger part in initial teacher training as full partners of higher education institutions’ (DES 1992:1). Subsequently, details have been attached to that broad statement of intention. They include the requirement that at least two-thirds of the thirty-six weeks of the PGCE year should be school-based.
