Learning from Introductory School Experience

A group of student primary teachers, their college tutors and supervising teachers were observed and interviewed during a structured, two‐week, introductory school experience to investigate what student teachers learned from the experience and how this learning was facilitated by teacher and tutor. Despite great efforts to structure and standardise the school experience for all students, it took a variety of forms, offering qualitatively different types of professional learning experience. For some students, it amounted to a modelling exercise, for others the accumulation of a wide range of practical tips, a critical reflection on their own and others' practice, a process of self‐discovery, or an occasion for the hardening of existing attitudes concerning teachers and teaching. Factors contributing to this variance included the conceptions of student teachers' professional learning and of their own role within it, held by students, teachers and tutors, and several organisational features of the school. It is suggested that the design of structured school experiences needs careful monitoring and evaluation if the expectations for them are to be fully realised.