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?

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• ITT
• teacher training
• inclusion
• integration
• SEN
• disability