Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England is increasingly shaped by accountability frameworks, including the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2011) and reforms associated with the Initial Teacher Training Market Review (DfE, 2021). Alongside inspection regimes overseen by Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted, 2023), these policy structures position schools as primary training sites and frame teacher development as measurable progression against professional standards. While policy discourse presents teacher preparation as a structured pathway, trainee experiences suggest a more complex and negotiated process of professional formation.
This presentation reports findings from a small scale practitioner inquiry conducted within a secondary Geography PGCE programme at a research intensive English university. The study adopts a qualitative multi method design combining questionnaire responses from trainee teachers (n=20), two in depth case studies, and ethnographic observations of mentor meetings, placement tutorials, and everyday interactions within the training partnership. These data provide insight into how trainees interpret and navigate expectations within contemporary school-based training contexts.
Data were analysed thematically following the framework developed by Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke (2006). Three interrelated tensions emerged: structural pressures that encourage performative compliance; relational inconsistencies within the trainee, mentor, tutor triad that shape interpretations of readiness; and epistemic tensions between maintaining disciplinary depth in Geography and responding to pragmatic classroom and examination demands.
By foregrounding trainee perspectives, the study demonstrates how accountability cultures shape professional learning and contribute to ongoing international debates about balancing quality assurance, professional agency, disciplinary knowledge, and sustainable teacher development within contemporary ITE systems.

Authors:
Narinderpal Mann, University of Manchester, United Kingdom

About the Presenter(s)
Narinderpal Mann is a Senior lecturer of Geography Education at the University of Manchester. His interests outside of scholarship activities are based on community activism, tending to his allotment, or practicing cello. He is often reading fiction.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Tuesday Schedule

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