Sustaining partnership working in practice learning: An exploration of the perspectives of practice teachers and students

This paper reports the findings of a small-scale study undertaken by one university – Glasgow Caledonian University- to test the state of ‘partnership working’ between the university and placement providers. The study was conducted in two stages with 35 practice teachers responding to an on-line survey in stage one, and 16 practice teachers and students participating in interviews at stage 2. Overall findings indicate that the university has managed to sustain effective partnership working, despite organisational changes and resource constraints but that a number of improvements should be made to existing arrangements so that partnership working and the quality of practice learning can be further enhanced. It is evident that ‘independent practice teachers’ and ‘work-based supervisors’ have an increasing presence on the practice learning landscape, requiring a careful examination of their roles and responsibilities.