INTRODUCTION
This thesis contains an account of an innovation in initial teacher
education which began in the early '70,s and which now
,8θ,s ,
is consolidating its achievements as an established course
with its own identity, its own forms of organisation, pedagogy and
assessment. This course, now known as the Alternative Course, began
in the London University Institute of Education as the Experimental
Course (Jones i98l) in 1974∙ Its structure and processes, whose
study forms the substance
of this thesis
are based upon this develop-
ment of the practice of partnership between schools and training
institutions which are now central to official statements which
will shape and inform the future of teacher education. Whilst Teaching
Quality (1983) contains much that is both desirable and sensible
there is little as to actual possibility and to the structures and
processes through which change may occur. Nor is there focus upon
critical changes in personal and professional orientation that will
require more than public exhortation and professional acquiescence.
Recent research into the Structures and Processes of Initial Teacher
Education within universities in England and Wales by Patrick,
Bernbauj
and Reid (i982)7 which is discussed in Chapter One,has demon-
strated clearly that the courses they described were the outcome
their student populations,
of the nature of the departments themselves
their
staffing and their
commitments
at other levels.
The importance of institutional characteristics in shaping the
character of courses is reflected in current research into School-
Based Training in the Postgraduate Certificate in Education^ funded
by the Department of Education and Science in the University of