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Promoting Quality in Teacher Education

UCET Teacher Education Blog

Connect, Collaborate and Contribute

Welcome to the UCET Teacher Education Blog. As outlined in the aims and purpose statement, this blog provides a dynamic forum for teacher educators to connect, collaborate and contribute to the advancement of knowledge, understanding and practice within teacher education. We are excited to share diverse perspectives from across the sector that will strengthen our professional community and we encourage you to join us in building a vibrant repository of ideas, research and experiences that will further shape the future of teacher education.

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Latest posts

  1. Preparing Teachers for 2050: Why Our Current Frameworks Aren’t Enough

    If we want to prepare young people so that they can thrive into the future, we need to have a robust understanding of what sorts of skills and knowledges they might need. And these questions matter because the world of 2050 will not just be a faster and shinier version of today, but is likely to be different in kind. To what extent then will our education systems of today need to adapt?

    Professor Clare Brooks (University of Cambridge)

  2. Student Teachers on the brink: a provocation concerning ITE poverty

    The UCET Intellectual Base of Teacher Education (UCET, 2020) states that high-quality teacher education ‘encourages a lifelong commitment to the education profession and pays careful attention to the factors that promote a healthy learning environment for teachers and learners’ (p.2). Currently, data suggests that many of our student teachers are not living in healthy environments.

    Professor Claire E Ball-Smith (University of York), Professor Aimee Quickfall (Durham University)

  5.  Inquiry as Resistance in ITE: The work of the UCET Equalities Group

    The UCET Equalities Group emerged at a moment when long standing inequalities could no longer be ignored. Although the Covid-19 pandemic did not create these inequalities it did expose the uneven impact of socio-economic, educational and health inequalities with painful clarity, especially for those with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010.

    (She/Her) Balbir Kaur (University of Nottingham), (She/Her) Lyndsay Muir (Lincoln Bishop University), (She/Her) Anjali Shah (University of Chester)

  6. What’s Your Story?: Storytelling as a Tool for Growing Confident, Reflective Teachers

    When we think about storytelling in education, we often picture early years classrooms but storytelling isn’t just for children. Our recent research with trainee teachers in the Further Education (FE) sector suggests it may be one of the most powerful tools for professional development. We began with a simple question: What happens when trainee teachers are invited to tell the story of becoming a teacher? The answer was powerful.

    Dr Sarah Telfer (University of Greater Manchester), Beth Houghton (University of Greater Manchester)

  7. A Profession-Led Vision for High Quality ITE

    Our UCET conference keynote called for a renewed, profession-led vision of high-quality Initial Teacher Education (ITE) in England. After years of policy reform the sector has shown remarkable resilience, yet policy changes have too often reduced teacher education to questions of content, sequencing, and compliance, sidelining the sector’s expertise and, in effect, allowing others to define quality for us.

    Professor Joanna McIntyre (UCET), Professor Trevor Mutton (University of Oxford)

  8. Does Initial Teacher Education in Northern Ireland Need a CCF?

    Education in Northern Ireland (NI) has been experiencing significant change following the publication of ‘TransformED NI: Transforming Teaching and Learning: A Strategy for Educational Excellence in Northern Ireland’ (DENI, 2025). This comprehensive reform programme focuses on a range of key school-based issues, all underpinned by substantial investment in teacher professional development from Initial Teacher Education (ITE) (via bursary schemes), through to an enhanced Induction programme and a

    Professor Martin Hagan, Professor Patricia Eaton (Stranmillis University College), Dr Karen Kerr, Dr Paul McFlynn (Ulster University), Dr Claire Woods (University of Ulster)

  9. Starting Over: Professional Identity, transition and retraining

    Teacher education has long attracted those seeking a second career. Among them are former service personnel, blue-light professionals, engineers, youth workers, carers, business leaders and others whose prior roles were demanding, value-driven and identity-forming. While the motivations for retraining vary, a common thread runs through these journeys: becoming a teacher is not simply about acquiring new skills but about re-forming professional identity (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2009).

    Mr David Mather (University of Portsmouth)

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