Trainee finds it difficult to handle any differences between the advice and ideas given by his history lead and the policies and approaches adopted by history teachers in his school context

Ken Davis is part way through his first training placement. This is a serial placement, in which he spends one day a week with the central provider and the other four days a week in his placement school. Ken has autism and initially he found the transitions from placement school to central provider and back again quite difficult. Although he is more used to this rhythm now, it has also been difficult for him to negotiate the ways in which practices in school do not always align with particular principles or recommendations that he has taken from the core sessions that his cohort has with the history lead.

Although the course deliberately seeks to acknowledge variations in practice between different contexts and encourages trainees to evaluate the implications of different approaches – always seeking to understand how and why departments have made different choices – Ken tends to focus on particular recommendations, and to regard alternative approaches as simply wrong. This tendency has caused some tension as he moves between the school and the central provider, but it also makes it quite difficult for him working alongside different teachers, who also make their own choices in relation to the central scheme of work and suggested lesson resources...