ABSTRACT
A key feature of the PGCE structure is the placement of pairs of students in one teacher’s classroom from the beginning of the course — the ‘Partnership’ phase. Extensive knowledge of individual schools was also to be found within college, where the placing of students on school practice had involved local heads and LEA officials for some years. Just as the development of mentoring within the BEd had partly been a response to growing student numbers so the dramatic increase in student numbers stimulated change in PGCE Partnership experience. The start of the Articled Teachers Scheme coincided with the development of the mentoring function in the one year PGCE into areas other than partnership. In 1991 schools who had already taken part in partnership projects were invited to increase their commitment to initial teacher education by becoming ‘affiliated schools’.
