In this paper, we draw on our research into the history of the Oxford Internship Scheme, a research-informed Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programme developed and implemented by a partnership between Oxford University (England), the local education authority in Oxfordshire and local schools, to offer an analysis of its development as an instance of innovation and collective creativity in ITE over the period 1973 to 1987. In making this analysis, we draw on two main data sets: first, long recorded interviews and unrecorded conversations with key protagonists from that period; second, an archive of documents collected by some of these key protagonists covering most if not all aspects of the scheme’s development. Through the analysis of how this programme of ITE emerged over a 14-year period, we show how such an innovation may be seen as a collectively creative response to a ground up feeling of a need to change amongst its principal actors. We also explore the importance of this ‘felt need to change’ in order for innovation to occur. The paper concludes by considering implications for change in teacher education particularly in the current policy context in England that has seen the government taking more control from the centre, specifying standards and re-organising teacher education particularly by creating and promoting more school-led ITE. We conclude by considering how a ‘felt need to change’, and subsequently innovation in ITE, could emerge in the current English policy context.

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