Lambert, M. (1992) Conductive Education in a new context. British Journal of Special Education, 19(4), 149‐152. 1 Conductive Education in a New Context Mike Lambert This month an independent research team from Birmingham University is due to report to the Department of Education on its assessment of the first three years’ work of the Birmingham Institute for Conductive Education. Its findings, if published, will arouse wide interest. Meanwhile, Mike Lambert, director, Centre for Research and Development at the Birmingham Institute, reviews the way the National Curriculum has been introduced and how far it seems compatible with conductive education. This is the first journal article to examine this issue. The Birmingham Institute for Conductive Education was set up in 1987 as a result of agreements between a new national charity, the Foundation for Conductive Education, and the Pető Institute in Budapest. The decision to transfer conductive education to the United Kingdom (UK) stemmed from the desire to establish a radically new system of guidance and teaching for children and adults affected by motor disorder, a system which transcended professional practices by introducing specialist teachers (‘conductors’) and which motivated pupils to become independent in their activities and learning (Lambert, 1987). In the 1960s and 1970s interest in conductive education among some professionals in the UK had brought the development of some work, most notably by Ester Cotton and Margaret Parnwell, at Claremont School near Bristol, Percy Hedley School, Newcastle, and in some schools run by The Spastics Society (Cottam, 1986). However, the plans for the Birmingham Institute were the first to be based on more than outsiders’ observations of conductive education and the first to include collaboration with the Pető Institute. This collaboration had three purposes. The first was to establish groups of children and adults with motor disorders working through conductive education, the second was to train the first British ‘conductors’ under the Pető Institute’s four‐year training course and the third was to provide a base for independent research, funded by the Department of Education and Science. Collaboration and transfer of a complex style of education has not been without its problems (Lambert, 1991). But now, more than four years on, the Birmingham Institute has well established conductive education for 18 school‐ aged children, all with cerebral palsy, who attend daily. It also has sessional provision for around 20 adults with Parkinson’s disease. Five British teachers qualified in January 1992 as the first conductors in the UK; a further 10 are nearing the end of their conductor training in Budapest. The initial plans for the Birmingham Institute were made before the publication of From Consultation to Practice (DES, 1987) which preceded the Education