THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND
CHURCH AND SOCIETY
EAGLAIS NA H-ALBA


121 George Street, Edinburgh, EH2 4YN.  Tel: 0131 225 5722  Fax: 0131 240 2239
Email: churchandsociety@cofscotland.org.uk   Web: www.churchofscotland.org.uk


Official Response
SUBJECT	Guidelines for Initial Teacher Education Programmes in Scotland
REQUESTED BY	GTCS
AUTHOR	Jane Reid for the Standing Committee on Education
REFERENCE	OR/003/2006
DATE	12 May 2006


The Church of Scotland, through its Church and Society Council welcomes the opportunity to respond to the consultation document, Guidelines for Initial Teacher Education Programmes in Scotland and would make the following comments. 


Questions
The Guidelines
1 Are you in favour of the suggested changes to the Guidelines? (Please feel free to comment positively or negatively about particular changes.)
Yes

2 Are there other suggestions you would make for consideration as possible changes?


3 Do you have any general comments you wish to make about the Guidelines?


The Standard for Initial Teacher Education
4 Are you in favour of the suggested changes to the Standard for Initial Teacher Education? (Please feel free to comment positively or negatively about particular changes.)
Yes - in core professional interests we are pleased to see that child protection and legal responsibilities have been added.  We also welcome the reference to drug education in 1.1.2 and in 2.1.5 the references to parents and multi-agency settings.
Finally in 3.1 we welcome the inclusion of the reference to socio-economic background.


Standards Consultation Document (2) 9
5 Are there other suggestions you would make for consideration as possible changes?

6 Do you have any general comments you wish to make about the Standard for Initial Teacher Education?

The Standard for Full Registration
7 Are you in favour of the suggested changes to the Standard for Full Registration? (Please feel free to comment positively or negatively about particular changes.)
Yes - we particularly welcome 1.1.2, the reference to drug education, at 1.2.2 we are in favour of a reference to parental representative bodies.  We are pleased to see the addition of child protection at 3.1 and at 3.3 the inclusion of the international and global context.

8 Are there other suggestions you would make for consideration as possible changes?

10 Standards Consultation Document (2)
9 Do you have any general comments you wish to make about the Standard for Full Registration?

10 Do you have any comments on the side-by-side presentation of SITE and SFR?
We found this extremely helpful.

11 If there are any further comments you wish to make please do so below.