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assessment would be seen as an integral part of the process of
professional education and university and teacher-tutors would become
partners in this process. This is to anticipate new areas of consid-
eration but it illustrates the continuing process of change.
Finally the Sussex developments emphasised the
relational elements over content in the planning
importance
and representation
of the course.
This view of the
PGCE informs the
Alternative Course
and the research presented on it. It appears no more accepted and
acceptable now than it was a decade ago and yet it is necessitated
by the implementation of partnership. To ignore this is to under-
estimate the nature of the possible changes and to cling to outmoded
conventions is to risk jeopardising the new enterprise. Yet it
of current practice
may be at just this point that the rhetoric/is at its most resistant
and pervasive. It has been developed over many years of PGCE pract-
ice that has emphasised knowledge and skills. This has been at
the expense of the consideration of the process whereby such know-
ledge and skills find their place in the professional attitudes and
behaviour of young teachers.
It is this process of becoming a teacher which is the basis of the
research presented in the following chapters of the thesis. The
focus is upon the work of the school group in both the Institute
and school. The school group was selected because previous work
with the Research Group had shown that it was the basis of the
innovation. Data was transcribed and analysed from the work of
three school groups; School A and its tutor were
both newcomers to
The Research Group (1979-80) consisted of nine students (4 social
studies, 3 English, and 2 mathematics) from the four school groups
who met together once a week throughout the PGCE to discuss their
experience of the course.