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The aims of the present study are to investigate whether and how teachers change in their observed classroom quality (emotional and instructional support, classroom organization, and students' engagement; measured with the Classroom Assessment Scoring System observation measure for secondary school [CLASS-S]; Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2006) during their teacher education year and the first 2 years of professional practice, as well as the effects of personal characteristics and contextual factors on observed classroom quality. Confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) with a reduced number of indicators per a priori construct fitted the data well. Using factor scores in 3-level multilevel models for change (376 lesson segments 20 min in duration nested within 10 time points, within 17 teachers), we found more variability over time than within lessons and the least variability between teachers. Emotional support showed an inverted U-shaped change over time, whereas classroom organization increased linearly over time. Emotional support was lower for older students, and students were more engaged in larger classes. A higher level of classroom organization during lessons was related to less variability in student engagement, but variability of instructional support was unrelated to variability of student engagement within each lesson. The findings are discussed within the context of teachers' supported transitions into professional practice.

The context of this research is one in which teachers are now expected to equip their pupils with the disposition and skills for life-long learning. It is vital, therefore, that teachers themselves are learners, not only in developing their practice but also in modelling for pupils the process of continual learning. This paper is based on a series of post-lesson interviews, conducted with 25 student teachers following a one-year postgraduate course within two well-established school-based partnerships of initial teacher training. Its focus is on the approaches that the student teachers take to their own learning. Four interviews, conducted with each student teacher over the course of the year, explored their thinking in relation to planning, conducting and evaluating an observed lesson, and their reflections on the learning that informed, or resulted from, that lesson. The findings suggest that while the student teachers all learn from experience, the nature and extent of that learning varies considerably within a number of different dimensions. We argue that understanding the range of approaches that student teachers take to professional learning will leave teacher educators better equipped to help ensure that new entrants to the profession are both competent teachers and competent professional learners.

Studies of student-teacher development have tended to suggest a three-stage model of development in which the novices' concerns shift outwards from an initial preoccupation with self, to a focus on tasks and teaching situations, and finally to consideration of pupil learning. This paper, based on sequence of post-lesson interviews conducted with 25 student teachers following 1-year postgraduate courses within schoolbased partnership schemes of initial teacher education, questions the adequacy of such a model. Analysis of the reasons that the student-teachers offered for their teaching decisions, and of their lesson evaluations suggests a high level of concern for pupils' learning and an awareness of the complexity of teaching from very early in their training. The implications of these findings are explored; in particular, the challenges that they pose to teacher educators in terms of course structure and curricula, and the need to be responsive to individual learners.

The commitment to establishing a 'school-led' system of teacher education in England, announced by the Coalition Government in 2011 (DFE, 2011) and relentlessly pursued thereafter, represented a radical departure from previous kinds of initial teacher education partnership. While it is entirely consistent with a neo-liberal agenda, with its strong regulatory framework and appeal to market mechanisms, it is also underpinned by a particular conception of teaching as a craft-'best learnt as an apprentice observing a master craftsman or woman' (Gove, 2010). In 2014 the Government established a Review of Initial Teacher Training, led by a primary school headteacher, Sir Andrew Carter. This signalled the recognition of teacher education as a 'policy problem', adopting Cochran-Smith's term. The ensuing report, published in early 2015, was more nuanced than might have been anticipated although a number of profound tensions emerge from a closer analytical reading; four of these tensions are similar to those previously defined by Cochran-Smith and two are newly emergent. This paper identifies and discusses these tensions as they appear in the Carter Review and relates them to wider debates about the links between teaching, teacher education, evidence and research and to policy making processes in education.

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