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In adopting increased accountability and content of teacher education and in meeting the demands of the Government to supply qualified teachers, the question of what it means to be a professional teacher is raised. Furlong et al., (2000) define teacher professionalism alongside other professions’ professionalism, as requiring knowledge and knowledge-based skills in which teachers should be trained, in addition to being able to make judgements about their clients and take responsibility for their part in working with a client. So a professional should have knowledge, be autonomous in applying that knowledge

and be responsible for the consequences of their decisions. An environment which sees teachers attaining competences meets only one of these aspects – knowledge that is decontextualised and transmitted. The Governments of the 1990s therefore adopted a stance moving from a liberal view of school led teacher education towards a neo-conservative view of traditional models of learning, transmitting knowledge, skills and values. For teacher training this meant an ‘apprenticeship’ model of learning – very practically based, emulating experienced practitioners (Furlong et al., 2000) and therefore the HE aspect of teacher education is marginalised. This was at odds with this notion that both practical training and the understanding of the underpinning theory of how children learn, led by the experts in each part (schools for the practical side and HE for the theoretical) were of value.

One view of teaching is where performance is measured against the outcomes of the learners in exams or tests. This implies that teachers are good if children do well in tests. However, as Kincheloe (1993) points out, this is an over simplification of teaching and actually it deskills the professional judgement of a trained teacher. In recent years though, it seems that there has been somewhat of a return to this view of teaching; for example, through the introduction of various national strategies and more recently the revised National Curriculum (DfE., 2014) which commenced in September 2014. It could also be perceived that this is how teachers are trained. They have a set of Standards to meet. If they can provide evidence that they have met each standard, they can qualify. So ITE might become about survival and ‘getting through’ or ‘making the grade’. The content of an ITE course and the school experience then may become about ‘tips for teaching’. The apprenticeship approach can also be used in social constructivist pedagogy, but it is dependent on the expert’s view of learning. A coalition Government advocated the ‘craft of teaching’ (DFE, 2010: online) but this has impacts longer term. An apprentice learns skills alongside the master craftsman. In teaching, this would mean a student teaching alongside a mentor. The problem lies in the next step. The skills learnt are from that one person, in that one context and therefore within narrow confines (Surman et al., 2011). This in turn means that these teachers teach as they have been taught. They may not change and may repeat the same over again, because they know of no other way. This eventually stagnates the profession (Kincheloe, 1993).

Kincheloe (1993) notes that teaching is more complex than this and so ITE and learning to teach must be more complex than this (Harnett & Carr, 1995), Surman, et al., 2010). The Government suggests further dictation of what should be included and a further change in the Standards for QTS (Department for Education, 2011). Kincheloe (1993) posits that teachers concerned with improving their thinking, connect with the school and have a vision of reform because they understand the people, culture, community and individuals involved. They also see school as a vehicle for intellectual and personal growth. Hopkins (1997) concurs, expressing that outstanding teachers care about their children and exemplary schools have a passion for learning that can be articulated by all parties. Therefore the role of ITE should be about creating outstanding, continually learning teachers. In order to do this, an alternative approach to the ones examined would need to be adopted. A new approach would need to promote reflective thinking and militate against a prescriptive approach.

Furlong et al.'s (2000) own study found that an agreed model across teacher education providers was that of reflective practice so that interconnections between theory and practice could be made. As Moore (2007) comments that student teachers in ITE should interrogate and critically reflect on children’s learning; that is student teachers going beyond reflecting about teaching practice and considering the intra- as well and interpersonal relationships in the classroom and the appropriate pedagogy to support this. These reflections contextualise experiences and enable teachers to implement informed actions to enable the development of a rationale for practice (Hackett, 2001). Student teachers therefore, need an understanding of how children learn as a scaffold against which the student teacher can reflect on the intrapersonal plane. It is through this understanding of the learning process that appropriate pedagogy can be adopted. Without an understanding of how children learn, it is hard to see how appropriate pedagogy can be adopted in the classroom.

Learning teachers seek ways of knowing (Kincheloe, 1993). They question the nature of their own thinking and they have a readiness to change and develop their practice (Hopkins, 1997). In order to operate this way, these teachers understand the underpinning reasons why they practise in the way they do. They understand the pedagogy and then make critical decisions about what is right for

the learning of their children. It is hard to measure how a teacher has made critical judgements about children’s learning, however it also means that there is no ‘one-size fits all’ approach to teaching, making it more difficult to measure as all schools and teachers could be operating in different ways. It means trusting teachers to make decisions and judgements, which in turn also means that ITE needs to be focussed on preparing student teachers to be able to make these critical judgements about their children’s learning through developing the student teachers’ understanding of pedagogy.