A teacher shortage is being experienced globally (Australian Government, 2022; European Commission, 2023; UNESCO, 2023) with resulting challenges for recruitment and retention of teachers. The ability of traditional models of initial teacher education (ITE) to produce classroom ready teachers who remain in the profession is being challenged (Green et al., 2019), with internships or extended placements seen as a way of continuing to forefront experiential learning and increase the quality of graduates (Ledger & Vidovich, 2018). This movement is resulting in a wide range of initiatives that not only continue to prioritise school-university partnerships but do so through the establishment of new forms of sustained, school embedded experiences. These initiatives build on a traditional perspective of teacher internship (Ledger & Vidovich, 2018) but use a range of terminology such as teaching schools in the United Kingdom (Chapman, 2013; Conroy, 2013), teacher training schools in Finland and South Africa (Gravett et al, 2014), and employment based pathways and teaching school hub programs in Australia (Alphacrucis University College, 2024; La Trobe University, 2024; University of Melbourne, 2024).

However, even though a focus on school embedded models is of vital importance to the future of teacher workforce supply, it is currently impossible to research effectively at scale making implementation of what is understood by school and university partners inherently problematic. There are two key reasons for this. First, there is a morass of disconnected terminologies used to explain school embedded models across primarily small-scale research. This inhibits broader understanding of these models and results in an inability to elevate or apply findings in different contexts with confidence. Second, there is no clear synthesis available regarding the key factors and conditions (core ingredients) within school embedded models that directly contribute to enhancing the readiness of initial teacher education students. Identifying these core ingredients and framing them within a shared definition can help to provide a common foundation for partners in new and existing initiatives, which in turn can lead to greater cohesiveness of understanding across future research.

This paper will share insights into these two areas, drawing on critical engagement with international literature explored as part of a rapid review (Cirkony et al, 2022, Garritty et al, 2021; Wollscheid & Tripney, 2021). The review forms the preliminary stage of research into the government funded National Embedded Cross Sector Teacher Education Program pilot (NECSTEP) in Australia, a joint project of Alphacrucis University College and The University of New South Wales (UNSW). The NECSTEP pilot brings together over 70 schools and 200 initial teacher education students, with the author the NECSTEP Research Director. The paper will highlight challenges and implications for school-university partnerships through layering a proposed definition and core ingredients emerging in the literature with an examination of school-based teacher education models across history from the French ‘ecoles normales’, to the spread of the ‘normal schools’, ‘model schools’, apprenticeship traditions and teaching schools (Aspland, 2006, Cornu, 2015; Loukomies et al, 2018; McNamara et al, 2014). In addition, it will critically engage with the recognition given in the literature regarding key epistemological and theoretical approaches for how they inform understanding of the conditions in ‘situated’ spaces that support initial teacher education readiness. This includes the role played by communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), Dewey’s experiential learning theory, the evolving concept of a third space (Beck, 2020; Daza et al., 2021; Zeichner, 2010), traditions of work-integrated or work-based learning (Dean, 2023; McNamara et al, 2014), and approaches borrowed from other industries such as the clinical model for teacher education (Darling-Hammond, 2009, McLean Davies et al, 2015).

Insights shared in this paper have emerged from a rapid review (RR) or rapid evidence synthesis, using an abbreviated systematic review approach (Cirkony et al, 2022, Garritty et al, 2021; Wollscheid & Tripney, 2021). The rapid review was conducted as the preliminary stage of research for the Australian National Embedded Cross Sector Teacher Education Program (NECSTEP) pilot, and to inform the exploratory sequential research design (Creswell and Plano Clark, 2018 p86). A rapid review is often used when timelines are limited (Garritty et al., 2021), which made the approach appropriate within the two-year timeline for the broader NECSTEP research. Rapid reviews of this kind generated specifically in education also informed the methodological approach adopted due to the lack of clear guidance available (Cirkony et al, 2022; Wollscheid & Tripney, 2021). Key rapid review stages were followed including development of a clear purpose, identification of eligibility criteria, initial searching, screening, data extraction and synthesis, along with engagement with information and field experts to ensure relevance. The rapid review aimed to identify and synthesise the way different sustained, school embedded models are defined, and any factors or conditions directly attributed to them as enhancing readiness of initial teacher education students. A protocol was established to clarify inclusion and exclusion of literature including identification of the initial teacher education student as the focus population, school embedded models as the intervention and peer-reviewed literature bounded by the past decade (2013-2023). The search strategy yielded 943 articles across the three target databases which was reduced to 129 articles after duplicates were removed and title and abstract screening. This resulted in 62 articles identified for detailed data extraction.

There is a need to strengthen pathways and approaches to initial teacher education to reverse the challenges facing the teaching profession and enable sustainability within the societal structures and complexities that have emerged over the past decade. To do so, high quality research regarding sustained, school embedded models of initial teacher education is required. However, for this research to be impactful at scale, it needs to be founded on shared language and conceptual understanding of what contributes to initial teacher education readiness in these experiences. This paper offers a first step toward this goal. It will provide definitional clarity based on a synthesis of more than a dozen different school embedded models arising from the critical review of literature and align this with a further synthesis of evidence-based factors and conditions (core ingredients) relevant to school and university partners. These range from commonly considered areas such as the role of school and university mentors and the influence of cohorts or a community of practice, to the less frequently articulated such as the role of professional identity formation and differences between employment based, volunteer and service learning experiences. Layered across the insights shared are suggested implications for research, and school and university partners, for the way they design and engage in these models. There is a need to move beyond the persistent view of theory and practice in education as located in separate spaces to reinforce partnerships that are mindful of the past but framed by an authentic understanding of third space in teacher education (Beck, 2020; Zeichner, 2010). This paper argues that it is definitional clarity and evidence of core ingredients that are needed to understand what success looks like and inform a modernisation of what historical models of school embedded initial teacher education sought to do.

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