The Australian government now mandates initial teacher education (ITE) providers to form partnerships with schools in order to maintain accreditation. The emphasis on partnerships as the crucial means of improving ITE is not new, and a body of literature from the Australian context describes a vast number of partnerships that have been enacted…

School-university partnerships are complex, entangled and layered. As renewal of initial teacher education is at the forefront, understanding how we approach partnerships is imperative. This paper draws on reflective narratives of a school leader and initial teacher education staff involved in setting up a school-university partnership program. We…

This paper investigates the complexities involved in a school-university partnership between a secondary school, Highview College and Federation University, both located in Australia. The authors argue that Federation University and Highview College have worked together to develop a transformational partnership in a Community of Practice (CoP)…

A growing awareness of the value of Aboriginal teachers in Australian schools has motivated the development of the 'On Country' Teacher Education (OCTE) program through collaboration between the Western Australian Department of Education and Curtin University. The OCTE builds on previous initiatives to increase the number of Aboriginal teachers in…

Universities often struggle to translate theory of inclusive education into real life practices for pre-service teachers (PSTs). In this paper, we evaluate an innovative partnership between Australian secondary school teachers and university academics where they co-designed and co-taught an undergraduate inclusive education course. We used a…

School-university partnerships have been developed to invigorate initial teacher education (ITE). Such partnerships potentially offer rich educational opportunities to pre-service teachers. This paper examines integrated and school-embedded approaches to ITE in the Australian context, drawing on a case study analysis of a three-year, ITE…

The Partners in Literacy and Numeracy Western Australia (PLaN WA) program was implemented within a School of Education to complement initial teacher education offerings. In forming a mutually beneficial service-learning program, schools received support from pre-service teachers to assist both primary and secondary students with their literacy and…

Across Australia and around the world, school-university partnerships have been advocated by researchers and policymakers as a means of bridging the perceived theory-practice divide for which teacher education programs have been criticised. A range of literature exists that explores school-university partnerships either from a theoretical…

The engagement of both school and university has played a significant role in initial teacher education. The focus of this paper is the growth of an alternative style of school-university partnership from a single school to a Hub of 19 school-university partnership, in the inner-west suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Four school and university mentors…

Initial Teacher Education remains the focus of policy reform and research in Australia with the broad aim of improving the quality of pre-service teacher education. There remains dispute about limited evidence justifying ongoing reforms, particularly in relation to gaps in understanding how providers and schools work collaboratively in the joint…

Global criticism on the quality of initial teacher education has led to calls for reform. One initiative that emerged in Australia was the establishment of Hub School partnerships, which facilitate collaborations between schools and universities to explore how initial teacher education could be improved. This paper reports one such partnership,…

Recent reforms for the early childhood education and care sector in Australia have led in part to the development of a national Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) which presents play based learning as "a context for learning through which children organize and make sense of their social worlds, as they engage actively with people, objects…

Research about the preparation of preservice teachers for inclusive teaching has tended to use quantitative approaches, such as surveys, to investigate ways to better prepare preservice teachers. Further, studies to date have tended to examine the attitudes of preservice and experienced teachers. This paper presents the findings of interviews with…

Pre-service teachers in Australian Initial Teacher Education programmes gain classroom experience through supervised, formally assessed professional experience placements and internships. This in-situ experience is recognized as important in the development of professional identities, knowledge and skills. However, many pre-service teachers lament…

Despite being increasingly popular within broader educational discourse, place-responsive pedagogy is less apparent in science teacher education. This paper investigates the perspectives of pre-service teachers in a science education course informed by place-responsive pedagogy in a Bachelor of Education (primary) program at an Australian regional…