ABSTRACT
As Chapter 1 made clear, our investigations have taken place during a period of considerable change within education. Initially, following the 1988 Education Act, inservice education in schools was largely driven by the need to adapt rapidly to meet National Curriculum teaching and assessment requirements. LEAs frequently utilized a cascade model of introducing change by offering courses on an authority-wide basis, while other providers also offered a good deal of ‘mass’ training. Although government funding was made available to support schools and LEAs in meeting newly detailed national objectives, the UK has never had a centrally imposed pattern of training which must be undertaken by some or all staff. Decisions over participation in particular programmes has, instead, rested with individual staff, managers and fund-holders. This contrasts with a European-wide developing pattern of setting national target areas for INSET. In 1994, for example, the Italian government required primary schools to be involved in centrally organized and locally provided training for the teaching of auditory, music, artistic and motor skills-though this fact alone is not indicative of the quality of the provision.
