Within the Scottish education system, initial teacher education (ITE) is based within universities, who work closely in partnership with schools and teachers across Scotland to offer the practicum element of the first stage of teacher education, normally a Professional Graduate or Postgraduate Diploma in Education comprising 18 weeks of on campus study and 18 weeks of practicum. In the last decade, there was a diversification of approaches to the partnership aspect of university initial teacher education (ITE) in Scotland from this standard 36-week model. Beginning in academic session 2017/18, the Scottish Government supported a range of new or ‘alternative’ university-based routes into teaching in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2020). Emerging through the ‘Teaching Scotland’s Future’ report in 2011, concerns over shortages in particular geographical locations and subjects motivated this support for more diverse approaches. A University of Dundee model, funded for a three-year pilot beginning in January 2018, offered a route into teaching in secondary schools in Chemistry, Computing, Home Economics, Mathematics or Physics. This Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) (secondary) with supported induction route (the ‘SIR’) was founded on multi-layered partnership across the development and implementation: with Scottish Government and the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS), local authorities and the schools and teachers within them, and with former students whose voices shaped the SIR and its implementation. This integral partnership work was intended to create a sustainable partnership model, to build on the knowledge and expertise of school-based teacher educators alongside that of university-based teacher educators and wider system partners. In this paper, we will reflect upon this innovative partnership approach and some of the data that was derived from the research which accompanied the pilot. Challenges of creating sustained partnership in the Scottish context will be explored as we consider the learning and experiences of students, school-based and university-based teacher educators and wider partners involved in the three-year pilot.

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