This book supports all those involved in initial teacher education (ITE) and with an interest in partnership working. Such partnerships are at the heart of ITE practices, both in the UK and internationally, but more recently models of partnership have become ever more complex as a result of government reforms, the rapid diversification of routes into teaching and significant increase in the number of SCITTs. The nature of partnerships in ITE remains contested with partnership working often reduced to a series of prescriptions for effective practice, ignoring both its pedagogic potential and inherent tensions. This book surveys and critiques partnership developments in recent years and then analyses a single case study of a school that exemplifies the current complexity of ITE partnerships using both policy and practice perspectives. It concludes with a series of principles that might underpin effective partnership working.

Why is teacher education policy significant - politically, sociologically and educationally? While the importance of practice in teacher education has long been recognised, the significance of policy has only been fully appreciated more recently. Teacher education in times of change offers a critical examination of teacher education policy in the UK and Ireland over the past three decades, since the first intervention of government in the curriculum. Written by a research group from five countries, it makes international comparisons, and covers broader developments in professional learning, to place these key issues and lessons in a wider context.

International trends in initial teacher education (ITE) and induction increasingly emphasise the importance of school-based learning for beginning teachers, and recent policy shifts have given many more schools a leading role in ITE. This book focuses directly on what has been learned from within well-established partnerships about the nature of beginning teachers' learning in schools and explores the ways in which teacher educators - both those that are school-based and those in universities who work in partnership with them - can most effectively support that learning. Beginning Teaching is part of the successful Critical Guides for Teacher Educators series edited by Ian Menter.

-Offers an important and timely contribution to the research on practical theorising in teacher education, which acknowledges the importance of experience and reflective practice but embraces the essential need for teachers to engage with evidence from research. -Explores both the challenges and opportunities presented by practical theorising, and the tensions introduced by performance culture in education, giving educators a range of tools to help navigate these demands and challenges. -Includes perspectives from university-based and school-based teacher educators, showing how the process of practical theorising has been supported across a range of different programs and formats.

Why is teacher education policy significant - politically, sociologically and educationally? While the importance of practice in teacher education has long been recognised, the significance of policy has only been fully appreciated more recently. Teacher education in times of change offers a critical examination of teacher education policy in the UK and Ireland over the past three decades, since the first intervention of government in the curriculum. Written by a research group from five countries, it makes international comparisons, and covers broader developments in professional learning, to place these key issues and lessons in a wider context.

-Offers an important and timely contribution to the research on practical theorising in teacher education, which acknowledges the importance of experience and reflective practice but embraces the essential need for teachers to engage with evidence from research. -Explores both the challenges and opportunities presented by practical theorising, and the tensions introduced by performance culture in education, giving educators a range of tools to help navigate these demands and challenges. -Includes perspectives from university-based and school-based teacher educators, showing how the process of practical theorising has been supported across a range of different programs and formats.

Learning to Teach in England and the United States studies the evolution of initial teacher education by considering some of the current approaches in England and the United States. Presenting empirical evidence from these two distinct political and historical contexts, the chapters of this thought-provoking volume illustrate the tensions involved in preparing teachers who are working in ever-changing environments. Grounded in the lived experiences of those directly affected by these shifting policy environments, the book questions if reforms that have introduced accountability regimes and new kinds of partnership with the promise of improving teaching and learning, have contributed to more powerful learning experiences in schools for those entering the profession. The authors consider the relationships between global, national and local policy, and question their potential impact on the future of teacher education and teaching more generally. The research adopts an innovative methodology and sociocultural theoretical framework designed to show greater insights into the ways in which beginning teachers' learning experiences are shaped by relationships at all of these levels. A key emerging issue is that of the alignment - or not - between the values and dispositions of the individuals and the institutions that are involved. This book will appeal to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of teacher education, comparative education, higher education, and education policy and politics.