ABSTRACT
Initial Training and In-Service Education of Teachers (IT-INSET) is a unique method of improving practice in the classroom. As the basic principle of IT-INSET is the firm link between the initial training of students and the in-service education of practising teachers, it is school-based and school-focused. An IT-INSET team normally consists of a class teacher, a tutor and five or six students. The strategies which IT-INSET embodies use the full potential of a team consisting of three groups of practioners: practising teachers; tutors involved in initial teacher training; and their students. The principles of IT-INSET described above take their direction from the concept of teaching as practical theorising. Colleges began to introduce IT-INSET into their teacher training programmes for special educational needs in the 1980s. The Colleges have been responsible for the introduction of IT-INSET into selected mainstream schools, with large numbers of special needs pupils, and into a range of special schools.
