The challenge in preparing for and facilitating cultural change in teacher education: the West Partnership experience

The recommendations of the Donaldson Report on teacher education, Teaching Scotland’s Future (2011) have provided the impetus for the establishment of partnerships between all stakeholders in Teacher Education across the country. Each Teacher Education institution has moved forward in establishing new and strengthening existing partnership arrangements with local authorities and schools. The West Partnership Project was formed by the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde and nine local authorities to progress the relevant recommendations. West Partnership is unique in the Scottish context because it is a partnership which involves the work of two teaching institutions as well as nine authorities; using government funding a small project team was formed in August 2014. The team concluded that to deliver on the cultural, as well as practical changes accepted and proposed in TSF, they would need to use the partnership as the vehicle to facilitate these long term sustainable changes to teacher education. A strategic vision for the partnership based on pilot evaluations, changes already implemented and interviews with a variety of stakeholders was developed and a conference of interested delegates arranged. Subsequent project strands have been set up to progress action points from the conference with the intention of moving forward in areas such as professional learning, particularly in the context of coaching and mentoring and exploring how to facilitate the joint work of tutors and schools. Through continued networking with a range of colleagues across the country, raising awareness of the Partnership across LAs and schools and by raising awareness of our approach with policy makers, we would hope to inform and influence.