| StorageSite | UCL Institute of Education |
| AdminHistory | The Teachers' Centre was established at the Institute in 1950 to organise refresher courses for practising teachers, but also provided advice for teachers who wanted to carry out further study as part of the Institute's role as the Area Training Organisation (ATO). Up to 1987 the Centre was run by the Advisor to Teachers who was later joined by an administrator, an information officer and deputy advisers who were specialists in research, and primary and secondary education.The Centre was formally supervised by the Committee on Facilities for Practising Teachers (FPT). In 1973 it was renamed the University Centre for Teachers in Schools and Establishments of Further Education which was later shorterned to University Centre for Teachers (UCT). The FPT was dissolved in 1978 and it appears that there was no immediate replacement for the committee, though an UCT courses sub-committee continued to make decisions on course provision. With the demise of the ATO the source of funding changed for all in-service courses and the Centre was now allocated part of grant from the University Grants Commission. It was also suggested that the UCT should be replaced by a new Centre for Teachers Education at the Central Institute, but the proposal was rejected by the Committee of Management. In 1980 the In-Service Sub-Board (later Short Courses sub-board) was set up under the Central Academic Board in 1980 to oversee the work of the Teachers Centre and co-ordinate all non-award bearing courses and several UCT Advisory committees were created to make recommendations to the Sub-Board. In 1986 the government announced they were to change how they funded in-service courses. In reaction the Institute merged the Short Courses Sub-Board with the Diploma/B.Ed Sub-Board to form the Diploma/B.Ed/Short Courses Sub-Board which reported to the Central Academic Board. The Centre was also reconsituted as the INSET (Liaison) Office and the Adviser to Teachers was to become the INSET Co-ordinator and continue to be the Institute's INSET representative. The INSET Office also had a new INSET Advisory Committee was set up to report to the Diploma/B.Ed/Short Courses Sub-Board.
The courses offered by the Centre were initially short evening in-service courses but they soon developed Saturday conferences, weekend courses and occasional special subject courses. The course leaders were drawn from all areas of the central and wider Institute and were responsible for the content of the courses. By the 1960s the Centre was also partly responsible for some of the teaching of the part-time diploma students. From the 1971 the Centre was the administrator of special in-service courses for teachers in the London area which were funded by the DES through Divisional Inspectors to ATOs. With the demise of the ATOs in the later 1970s these ATO/DES courses were soley funded by the DES and were called DES regional courses. In 1985 the DES Regional In-Service Training Committee was set up at the Centre featuring representatives from LEAs and education providers to approve funding for in-service course run under the DES regional scheme. In 1987 the Governement completely withdrew funded for the DES regional courses, but the Institute contiuned to run courses funded by the local LEAs called INSET regional courses. |
| CustodialHistory | Most of these papers appear to have been collated by Hilary Williams who was the INSET administrator from [1980]-[1991]. |