Working Towards Professionalism: A Pathway Into The Post-Compulsory Community Of Practice

• Main Author: Cushing, Ian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Huddersfield Press 2012-01-01
• Series: Teaching in Lifelong Learning: A Journal to Inform and Improve Practice
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.5920/till.2012.4113

It is a particularly volatile and unpredictable time in UK Further Education (FE). This article aims to give an insightful and honest account of one pre-service trainee’s post-compulsory PGCE (1 year; full-time) experience with close reference to various aspects of professionalism within the FE community of practice, looking at the degree to which the Lifelong Learning UK (LLUK) professional standards have been met throughout the year. The paper sheds some light on the positive and negative aspects of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in FE, concluding that professionalism can be defined using both subjective and objective measurements, that individual conceptions of professionalism may or may not overlap with others, and that it is felt some of the LLUK standards have been met more than others in the author’s own teaching practice. The training provider was in central London; the teaching placement was in an FE college in south-west London.