The university based elements perceived as faced with a difficult task

Some case study participants, while still articulating the value of school based learning and the perceived limitation of the university based elements, took a more sympathetic view. This was based on recognition of the diversity of schools. Reflecting on her own suggestion of the incorporation of sessions on ‘specific use of voice’, ‘specific phrases you can use’ and ‘specific behaviour management techniques’, Sarah conceded:

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I realise that that must be difficult to teach because every school has different systems for behaviour management. I’m realising that now that you don’t know until you start teaching what the system is. Whether you should be sending children to the head teacher, whether you should be sending them to the classroom next door, whether you should be doing this or that. However, there are some generic things that I think would have been useful to have learnt.

(Sarah, Interview 1)

Sarah’s examples are primarily procedural points that inevitably vary between institutions but arguably would not limit the university’s capacity to cover the types of things she suggests she would have found useful. Mark looked beyond simple differences in school frameworks for managing behaviour and highlighted a number of other variables,

University and seminar time can’t really prepare you for what is in a classroom, they can only give you ideas but it doesn’t put you in that situation and every child is different, every situation is different, there is no way that it can all be covered in a seminar so I think they are right to have…um…not perhaps dedicated a massive amount of time to doing that, um definitely the school placement was the way forward for learning.

(Mark, Interview 1)

He seemed resigned to the idea that the university cannot really prepare trainees in relation to behaviour, they can only learn it on the job. Though framed as a rather defeatist message regarding the potential of the university to contribute much of value to his learning in relation to behaviour, there is a hint of an opportunity. Mark’s view reflects Korthagen’s (2001) perspective that it may not be possible for beginning teachers to be prepared for every type of situation they would face because of the unique characteristics of schools and students. Korthagen (2002) argues instead that beginning teachers need to learn how to gain new knowledge in order to solve the new ‘problems’ they will face rather than assuming that training for teachers should involve building a store of knowledge to apply to practice. Such perspectives accept that the teacher is involved in the process of responding

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to the often complex needs of individual pupils and therefore has to make multiple decisions in non-routine situations (Haggarty 2002). The opportunity may be for the university to focus on building trainees’ capacity to problem solve and seek out new knowledge when required.

Returning to the topic of the contribution of the university based elements of the PGCE course in the third interview, Mark’s thinking had moved on from the university having a difficult task in preparing the trainee for the diversity of schools and pupils to an understanding that the PGCE course represented a basic grounding upon which the teacher has the responsibility as professional to build:

I think that what you get at university is still the best you can get because it is something that develops by being in those situations. There’s no quick answer - it’s not going to happen straight away. There is a learning curve, because every group is different, every school is different, and every school has their own behaviour policy. There’s no way a university could ever cover all possibilities. It’s not going to happen. So the basic grounding you get is I think the best you can hope for. And then it’s up to a teacher as a professional, as part of their job, to make the effort to go out and continue to broaden their knowledge of how to look for solutions.

(Mark, Interview 3)

In considering the extent to which this comment is evidence that the university is fulfilling something similar to the role envisaged by the views of Korthagen (2001), it is important to note that Mark still maintained a view that the university elements only represented ‘the best you can hope for’. It is not the positive rendering of these elements as the right form of preparation that enables more effective learning about behaviour during the school based experience and subsequently as a newly qualified teacher. The implication within how Mark expressed his views was that ‘thebasic grounding’ relates to substantive content about behaviour rather than the development of a way of thinking.

Underlying the views of Sarah and Mark is the question of whether schools are so unique that training can only ever aim to prepare the individual for

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where they are at any particular time. This theme also emerged in the first interview with Justin. He was very positive about the intervention he had from a university tutor whilst on a difficult placement. There appeared to be a contradiction between the positivity shown in the interview and the limited value attached to the contribution of the taught elements and tutor support he recorded when he completed the second questionnaire. When Justin was given the opportunity to expand on this it was clear that his positivity was due to a particular tutor being able to offer advice that related to the specific context. It was also the reason that he attached value to the contribution of the school based mentor:

The advice you get on placement is more contextual and relevant for that specific placement, for that specific school, so the advice that you get tends to be highly relevant, and has a sense of urgency because what you’re told in a school mentor meeting, you’re actually going to be able to apply the very next day on placement. Which you don’t get at university, and it’s more removed, it’s more theoretical.

(Justin, Interview 1). Justin’s responses placed value on learning that relates to context and is immediately applicable. His recommendation for improving training reflected this. He advocated a more individualised form of support where advice from the tutor was tailored to the context. The positive contribution of an individual tutor was also a point noted by Mark when talking about his second placement:

There was a group of 6th formers who would struggle, I would struggle to get any work out of them, very nice boys, you know not particularly disruptive but they just wouldn’t, they didn’t want to do work so I emailed the university, my university tutor for some help and he emailed back with some suggestions so that was more of a one to one basis with my subject tutor.

(Mark Interview 1)

Viewed in the context of, for example, Powell and Tod’s (2004) work, it could be considered positive that Mark, Justin and, to a more limited degree, Sarah had recognised that training in relation to behaviour management cannot be

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reduced to an imparted set of universally applicable strategies to be implemented. However, the concern conveyed is still with the acquisition of strategies. The key difference is that, rather than a belief in the existence of a universal set, Mark, Justin and Sarah placed their faith in the opportunities school placements provide to learn context specific strategies. If professional development in relation to behaviour management is only based on learning strategies and approaches for a particular context, then it raises issues regarding transferability to different settings. A less positive interpretation of Justin’s view, for example, is that it equates with simply learning enough to cope on a day to day basis in one context.