A set of teaching standards for the subject of geography was developed by the profession for the profession and intended for use as a reflective tool for professional practice. These GEOGstandards were empirically generated from the practice of experienced, specialist geography teachers from across Australia. However, little is known about the use and impact of these standards in developing the practice of geography teachers, particularly in the pre-service years. In this paper, we share findings from the first phase of a qualitative, longitudinal reflexive study with five pre-service geography teachers who were completing their final year of study in an initial teacher education program and preparing to transition into the teaching profession. We argue a sustained approach towards theory-practice reflection, focused on the GEOGstandards and implemented prior to and during professional experience, enables pre-service geography teachers to effectively discern important aspects of teaching geography, and take action to develop their pedagogical practice. Data are generated through the conduct of a social lab, lesson observations and semi-structured interviews and analysed through the lens of reflexivity theory. This paper makes an important contribution to geography education because it is the first known study to empirically investigate how the use of GEOGstandards contributes to the development of pedagogical practice amongst pre-service geography teachers. In doing so, the findings yield crucial implications for effective initial teacher education in a subject-specific context.