Shifting codes: education or regulation? Trainee teachers and the Code of Conduct and Practice in England

In 2009, the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) introduced a revised Code of Conduct and Practice (2009) for registered teachers. The code also applies to all trainee teachers who are provisionally registered with the GTCE and who could be liable to a charge of misconduct during their periods of teaching practice. This paper presents the results of a small-scale piece of research that utilises Q-methodology to ascertain trainee teacher alignment with the code. Our research concludes that trainee teachers in the sample have a high degree of homogeneity in relation to prioritising specific areas of the code, namely those pertaining to ethical behaviours. They do not prioritise those areas of the code relating to classroom-based skills which they have yet to develop. The paper questions the efficacy of a code which represents an aggregate of a code of conduct, a code of ethics and a set of standards for practice.