In the last years, initial primary teacher education policies have been at the center of the political, social and pedagogical debate, at international (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Tatto-Menter, 2019; Kowalczuk-Walędziak et al., 2019) and European level (European Commission, 2017).

Also in Italy primary school teacher education is an important matter and it has been one of the topics of the pedagogical and political national debate during the last 30 years (Magni, 2019, 2020).

Starting from Law No. 341 (19 November 1990), it has been established the university course (4 years) in primary teacher education in Italy. Then, the Ministerial Decree No. 249 (10 September 2010) extended the course to 5 years with a limited number programmed at the national level (around 7.000 students during academic year 2019/2020).

Within a concurrent model, the students during these 5 years have to attend disciplinary courses (Italian, Maths, etc.) and pedagogical-didactic courses and workshops; at the same time, they have to undertake some traineeship periods into the schools. With the graduation, students also gain the qualified teacher status (abilitazione all’insegnamento) and can participate in a national competitive exam (to be hired in a state school) or starting to teach in a non-state school.

Ten years after this important legislative measure, it is perhaps time to reflect on the situation regarding the initial teacher education of primary school teachers in Italy.

The global impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on initial teacher education systems (Carrillo & Flores, 2020; Bertagna 2020) as well as, within the Italian context, the recent introduction of some normative innovations – such as the possibility of working as substitute teachers for students attending, at least, the third year of the primary teacher education course – represent, for nowadays and the future, an interesting field of study.

The research will propose an in-depth analysis of the project “Future teachers for new school”, started in the primary education teacher course at the University of Bergamo in 2020, in collaboration with a local network of nursery and primary schools. It is characterized by a special attention to the relations between theory and practice, lessons, workshops and traineeships, University and local schools, according to the pedagogical principle of work-based learning (McNamara et al, 2013; Bertagna, 2015; 2016).

The project “Future teachers for new schools” aims to strengthen not only the possibilities for an overall improvement in the quality of learning processes in the initial training phase of future teachers in primary schools (Darling-Hammond & Oakes, 2019), but also to further explore and enhance the pedagogical trajectory of Community-Based Experiential Learning in initial teacher education programs (Harfitt & Chow, 2020), in the light of the successful policies and pedagogical practices already adopted at the international level (Murray et al., 2019).

Therefore, the research aims to analyze and verify the effectiveness of the project according to the above-mentioned issues.

In order to explore the peculiar features of the pedagogical model of primary education teacher introduced by the University of Bergamo in 2016, it has been adopted a qualitative research method, based on documentary research, survey, interviews and focus groups involving more than 50 prospective primary teachers students, teachers, school tutors, coordinator traineeship tutors and the main local stakeholders (such as headmasters, local and regional ministry of education officials, etc.). This choice is strictly connected to the importance of investigating the personal perceptions and pedagogical practices carried out by future teachers (Gemmink et. al, 2020): the research explains expectations, doubts and proposals formulated by each protagonist of the project “Future teachers for new schools”, in order to identify the main skills provided by the initiative and its effectiveness in the field of the initial professional development. The project, as explained, has a methodological focus on the practice of shadowing (Pilyugin, 2006; Sclavi, 2014), reinterpreted in an innovative way, because its protagonists are two students: one in the first year of traineeship (“junior student”) and the other in the third or fourth year of traineeship (“senior student”). In this way, the shadowing could be more effective, because it encourages some important educational dynamics, implicated by the peer-tutoring practices and the peer-to-peer exercises concerning a pedagogical reflection about the educational and teaching practices observed (Woolhouse; Nicholson, 2020).

The pedagogical model for initial primary teacher education proposed by the University of Bergamo since 2016 has shown, in the first five years of life, some advantages, such as the main role recognized to the pedagogical principle of work-based learning, as a systematic connection between lessons, annexed and compulsory workshops, not direct and direct traineeships, etc. Therefore, all the students could have the opportunity of discovering in the educational and teaching practices observed a rich source of pedagogical reflections and professional development. The investigation about the first results of the project “Future teachers for new schools” has shown a good level of satisfaction expressed by all the involved students, teachers and tutors, because the practice of peer-tutoring in the classroom – as an original reinterpretation of the job shadowing practice as “teacher” shadowing practice – has been an adjunct value for the initial professionalization of young teachers. A more possibility of exchange between senior students and junior students and the double pedagogical supervision guaranteed by the school tutors and the coordinator traineeship tutors have implemented the quality of the professional development in their primary teacher education course. Moreover, the nursery and primary schools involved have become places for workshop activities, opened to all teachers of local schools, in order to promote a better ongoing training on some peculiar subjects (such as ITC and coding, STEM, school inclusion, outdoor education, etc.).

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