Pre‐service teacher training and special educational needs in England 1970–2008: is government learning the lessons of the past or is it experiencing a groundhog day?

The paper outlines the findings from a literature review of the English government’s response to the issue of training pre‐service teachers in the delivery of effective special educational needs support. The review’s findings detail that although educational practice in mainstream classrooms has changed considerably since the 1970s the training of pre‐service teachers with regards to special educational needs has seemingly changed very little. The paper argues that the government needs to re‐think radically its policy of inclusion to ensure that a coherent plan is formulated which enables higher education institutions’ initial teacher training programmes to train students who are competent and confident in their abilities to work with children with special educational needs and/or disabilities

Review of training and development in the police federation of England and Wales

This report emanated from a research project led by the author commissioned by the Police Federation of England and Wales in order to evaluate the extent to which the training and other support it provided for its members was appropriate to their needs at the start of the 21st century. The report describes the quantitative and qualitative process of data collection. It makes sixty nine recommendations which represent a radical agenda for transforming the Federation into a true 'learning organisation'. The Federation's Joint Central Committee continues to act upon these recommendations to support its ambitions and aspirations. Davies was subsequently employed as a consultant to support the process of implementing these recommendations. He was responsible for 60% of this publication

Union learning representatives—a new source of professional support for scottish teachers

Union Learning Representatives (ULRs) are a relatively recent phenomenon and are a new category of lay representation within the workplace in the United Kingdom. They are part of the present New Labour administration’s drive to expand and improve lifelong learning and continuous professional development and create the new ‘learning society’. ULRs have become significant in the Scottish educational system, particularly in response to the McCrone Report, which dealt with the future of continuous professional development (CPD) of Scottish teachers and made significant recommendations in this area. To this end, the Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), which represents the overwhelming majority of teachers in Scotland, took up the challenge and launched a Learning Representatives scheme with the expressed desire that these representatives work to advise, broker and facilitate improved CPD opportunities for their colleagues. The aim of our article is twofold. Firstly, to outline the EIS Learning Representatives scheme in some detail, and secondly, to outline how it is progressing from the perspective of the representatives themselves. Our hope is that this article will help stimulate a debate in Europe amongst academics, politicians and practitioners to the extent that the concept of ULRs is adopted beyond the shores of the UK. © 2006 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved