Professional learning in teacher centres – current and historical perspectives

In this seminar I will present a paper that I have been developing with my colleague Dr Tamar Groves, in which we undertake a comparative historical analysis of the role of teachers’ centres in England and Spain from the 1960s-1990s and explore how their distinctive approach to teachers’ professional learning might speak to current debate about a perceived crisis in teaching and teacher education. The paper is in three main parts. First, I will briefly outline the development of teachers’ centres in England and in Spain. Then I will focus on identifying what we consider to be the fundamental elements that constituted the core essence of the teachers’ centre model of teacher professional development. Finally, I will argue that in their brief historical moment, teachers’ centres had the potential to radically shape the teaching profession and that there might be scope for reinventing a refined model of teachers’ centres as part of the twenty-first century teacher re-professionalisation agenda.