This paper reports on the impact of a major policy direction in initial teacher education designed by the UK government to foster a school led system in teacher preparation. Drawing upon a range of case studies it examines how one established Initial Teacher Education partnership between a University and over 100 secondary and primary schools has responded to the policy initiative called School Direct. This new qualifying route into teaching significantly shifts ownership of initial teacher preparation away from higher education institutions to schools and academies where responsibility for recruitment, selection, training, assessment and subsequent employment is, in theory, driven by the needs of schools. It examines views on the distinctive nature of this training route, its advantages and challenges as well as perceptions on what impact School Direct will have on schools and teacher education in the near future.

As such the paper addresses four key research questions:
1. What are the ways in which School Direct might be seen as distinctive from other ITE options?
2. What are the perceived advantages and benefits of School Direct to different stakeholders?
3. Equally, what are the disadvantages and challenges of School Direct to different stakeholders?
4. What is the anticipated impact and development of School Direct on schools and existing teacher education systems?

The study is situated within a context of official and informal discourses on education policy which are enriched and characterised by those striving to capture its scale, shape and dynamism; Husband’s (2012) vivid assessment of change as “seismic” captures much of the impact of recent educational transformation. This is particularly the case in conceptions of how to prepare beginning teachers both in the UK (Furlong, 2013) and increasingly across Europe (Caena, 2014; Zuljan, and Vogrinc, 2011) and indeed across the world (Darling-Hammond, 2012). Established models of teacher education which privilege reflection (Schon, 1983) , research informed practice (Burn and Mutton, 2013) or the acquisition of professional knowledge (Eraut, 1996) have been challenged by a re-emergence of those who argue teaching is a craft (Leinhardt, 1990) best learnt through apprenticeship (Gove, 2012) and School Direct can be seen as a determined attempt to embed this practice (Clare and Pitfield, 2013). Yet there is evidence to suggest that this particular view of a school led model only reinforces the accelerated direction of teacher education initiated in the last century (Whitty, 2014).

The study is considered within a situated learning framework, recognising and testing the ways in which the development of and learning by beginning teachers is informed by Lave and Wenger’s theory of legitimate peripheral participation.

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