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The Teacher Training: The emphasis on the National Curriculum, however, and the introduction of set competencies, now standards, for newly qualified teachers have resulted in few initial training courses offering thorough nursery training. The knowledge and skills, like child development, essential to successful early years practice have been neglected. Denise Hevey and Audrey Curtis (in Pugh 1996) review teacher training for the early years and emphasise the need for management and leadership skills and the ability to work with parents and professionals from other disciplines.
3. The Teacher Training Agency (1998), on behalf of the Government, is committed to improving standards throughout the teaching profession, and to enhancing the continuing professional development needs of special educational needs (SEN) specialist teachers. It will in 1999 be outlining new training standards which will relate to a number of specific kinds of SEN, and it seems feasible that, within standards relating to physical disability, the needs of DCD children will be addressed.
The College has been recognised as a leading teacher training institution and so, as teacher educators, we seek in this and the companion publication, Teaching Young Children, to share some of our ideas and to encourage the debate and disagreement which are the Signs of a strong and healthy democracy. In particular, within that debate, we want parents, educators, teachers, politicians and policy makers to discuss what education is for and what childhood is for - and to explore the meaning of some of the responses to these questions.
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