June 9, 2025, by Rupert Knight

Learning to teach through immersive practice

This year has seen the introduction of Intensive Training and Practice (ITAP) as a requirement for all teacher education courses in England.

How does ITAP relate to existing teacher education practices?  How might ITAP be integrated in a way that aligns with existing principles on a course like a one-year PGCE? In this post, Rupert Knight, Esther Fulton and Rachel Peckover reflect on the University of Nottingham primary team’s response.

The ITAP requirement

As part of the reforms guiding the recent reaccreditation of English initial teacher education (ITE) providers, the DfE introduced a requirement for four weeks of ITAP time:

To help consolidate trainees’ knowledge of key evidence-based principles for effective teaching, and to enable them to practise their application and integration into their developing professional practice… to ensure effective integration between the different types of knowledge and skills.

ITAP involves exposure to evidence and expert practice, alongside opportunities for beginning teachers to enact and refine an aspect of that practice in ‘low stakes’ environments and then live classroom settings.

In one sense, then, ITAP is a recently mandated innovation in England but it can also be seen as part of a long tradition of practice-oriented approaches within teacher education.

Working with theory and practice

ITAP, in essence, is a response to an age-old challenge of teacher education: how best to integrate knowledge for teaching arising from both theory and practice. The complex relationship between the two in the context of becoming a primary teacher is discussed in this article by Knight. The attempt, through ITAP, to bridge the worlds of research and practice has echoes of ‘research-informed clinical practice’, as summarised over a decade ago by Burn and Mutton, who argue that it involves:

Bringing research-based understandings of teaching and learning into dialogue with the professional understandings of experienced classroom teachers (p.3).

This implies a practice-driven form of learning, with relevant theory and evidence brought to bear immediately on classroom contexts, as seen in Ellis and Childs’ account of the Oxford Internship Scheme from some decades ago. Beyond simply an immersion in practice, however, the ‘dialogue’ referred to above by Burn and Mutton can be seen to relate to two well-established and related ideas: practical theorising and pedagogical reasoning.

1. Practical theorising , summarised here by Burn and Mutton, involves subjecting ideas from practice to critical examination, including through reference to theory and research evidence. These ideas might involve big issues, such as grouping pupils by attainment level. However, in the context of ITAP guidance, which emphasises ‘granular’ aspects of practice, beginning teachers might for example, explore how to encourage responses to teachers’ questions: having seen a variety of strategies in school, including ’cold calling’ they might investigate and evaluate these practices.

2. Pedagogical reasoning, as originally conceived by Shulman, is a cyclical process of understanding principles, transforming and enacting those principles in practice, and then evaluating and reflecting with a view to improved understanding. For example, beginning teachers might be introduced to principles of modelling, such as thinking aloud and choosing suitable examples. They might be asked to adapt and trial the principles, initially in a simulated scenario and then, after refinement, in an authentic context. Crucially, the access to ‘expert’ feedback also allows an insight into the usually tacit and intuitive reasoning of the more experienced practitioner.

These ideas of simulation, trial and refinement bring us to another concept cited in the DfE’s guidance: ‘approximations of practice.’

Approximations of practice

Approximations of practice involve identifying, decomposing and rehearsing complex representations of a teacher’s work in a safe space and have long been an important part of the practice-based teacher education movement in the US. Much of this approach has centred on the idea of ‘core practices’, detailed, for example, in this article by McDonald and colleagues. As explained in a previous blog in this series, core practices are not simple recipe-like routines, but complex, high-frequency aspects of teaching that involve the exercise of professional judgment.  In this context, Grossman and colleagues suggest that approximations of practice are:

Designed to focus students’ attention on key aspects of the practice that may be difficult for novices but almost second nature to more experienced practitioners (p.2078).

Their work also envisages a variety of approximations on continua such as less authentic to more authentic, depending on:

• The facets of practice being rehearsed

• The resemblance of the scenario to a real context

• The degree of involvement of the instructor

Returning to ITE in England, a number of ITAP designs are therefore possible. This article gives an example of one ITE provider’s response and we now turn to illustrating the approach taken for the University of Nottingham Primary PGCE.

Our approach to ITAP

At the University of Nottingham, we had some existing ITAP-like practice to build on. Focused exploration of four core practices, including low-stakes opportunities for rehearsal with peers and guidance for follow-up discussion and enactment in school were already in place. We had also used ‘immersion days’ on behaviour and bilingual learners, which featured university input, classroom observation and collaborative reflection. Rather than using the name Intensive Training and Practice, we have used the term Immersive Practice Day (IPD). This fits more comfortably with our commitment to Initial Teacher Education, rather than Initial Teacher Training and acknowledges the complexity of learning to teach.

Additionally, rather than timetabling isolated focus weeks, IPDs are interwoven as days within our spiral curriculum across the academic year, allowing beginning teachers to revisit and build upon core themes progressively. Each IPD is part of one of three themes:

1. Classroom presence and communication (to support high expectations for all)

2. Building positive relationships and learning environments (to ensure all pupils are able to learn).

3. Pedagogical practices (to ensure all pupils can make progress)

Immersive Practice Days (IPDs) planning and principles

The design for IPDs was rooted in our existing values and ethos, and the principles embedded within our Strands and Phases curriculum, which can be explored further in this article by Knight and Sullivan. Throughout development, we met termly with our management board made up of primary colleagues, to discuss the themes and shape of the days.  We aimed to build on these foundational principles, maintaining the complexity outlined both above and in Janssen et al.’s discussion of decomposition and recomposition in teaching practice. We based the structure of our days on this model, which included:

Decomposition: through observation of expert practice (both in the moment classroom observation, prompts, and videos of expert teaching), developing a shared professional language and understanding of key practices.

Approximation: offering opportunities for practice in low-stakes environments, such as rehearsals and role plays for beginning teachers to integrate conceptual and procedural knowledge.

Recomposition: encouraging beginning teachers to incorporate learned strategies into high-stakes classroom practice through lesson planning and application in their own placement contexts and with their own pupils, enabling them to see progression over time.

The IPDs are also underpinned by a wider theoretical foundation, including:

• Inclusive Pedagogy, as explored by Florian et al.

• Social Justice, as seen through the work of Thomson;

• Funds of Knowledge, as proposed by Moll et al.

The design and delivery of these days is therefore shaped around recognising the diversity within our partnership schools and there is an overarching commitment to inclusive pedagogy. At the heart of this is the belief that beginning teachers must hold a strong sense of social, emotional, and intellectual responsibility towards their pupils. We aim to cultivate educators who can:

• Recognise and respond to diverse pupil needs.

• Develop attitudes and beliefs that support inclusive, accessible, and relevant learning opportunities for all.

In order to support this, we have created our own virtual classroom of diverse pupils, called the ‘Dearing Class’, complete with pupil profiles and extensive class data, which we draw on to practise these skills in a more contextualised way.

Some IPDs take place in school and others at the university, each with a clear rationale for its place in the learning journey. We offer here an example of each.

Example of school-based IPD

Building positive relationships and learning environments: managing low level disruption to ensure all children are able to learn.

This topic came near the start of the first teaching placement, allowing beginning teachers to become familiar with how their schools’ behaviour policies  were enacted by experienced teachers in different classrooms before taking responsibility for creating positive learning environments in their own classes.

The purpose of the immersive practice day was to allow our beginning teachers to investigate an aspect of school life in depth by integrating reflective activities and consideration of some theoretical perspectives, thereby immersing themselves in this aspect of practice.

Aims of the day:

• Understand the reasons why low-level disruption happens in the classroom

• Learn how experts respond to low-level disruption

• Practise managing low-level disruption in a familiar setting

• Understand the importance of positive behaviour approaches to ensure the inclusion for all pupils

Plan for the day:

Introduction and expert input: beginning teachers talked to their school mentor about key features of their placement school’s behaviour policy that they were looking out for during observations such as rewards, sanctions and routines.

Observation and analysis: beginning teachers observed rules, conventions and routines in two different classrooms. They also observed how pupils were behaving around the school e.g. in the corridors, the playground, the dinner hall, at the start and end of the day etc. Using an observation schedule for each lesson,  beginning teachers recorded the expectations and routines used by different teachers to help with low-level disruption.

Opportunity to practise: beginning teachers worked with a small group of pupils for 30-60 mins on a learning activity agreed by their school mentor. They focused on how they could make their behaviour expectations clear and ensure that they were following the school /class behaviour policy during the activity.

Research and theory: in preparation for a group reflection, beginning teachers read the Ofsted publication regarding approaches to low-level disruption and recorded notes.

Reflection/ Impact on practice: beginning teachers completed a written reflection on how their understanding of managing low-level disruption had changed and how they may approach it differently (or in the same way) during their first placement. They then drew up a short behaviour for learning action plan to share with their school mentor. An online group tutorial was then held for the beginning teachers to discuss and share their learning from the day and how they were going to move forward in their practice.

Example of university-based IPD

Classroom presence and communication to support high expectations for all: communicating with parents and carers.

This IPD appeared during the second teaching placement: a time when beginning teachers are often confident in developing positive relationships within school, but can still be less secure if interacting with parents and carers.

Aims of the day:

• Recap benefits of home-school links

• Explore dynamics within the parent/carer-teacher relationship

• Practise effective communication with parents /carers through parents’ evening and report writing

• Understand the importance of positive relationships to ensure the inclusion for all pupils

Plan for the day:

Research, theory and expert input: throughout the session, beginning teachers engaged with policy documents, such as EEF reports on homework and working with parents, and used research articles to consider their own positions and responses to a range of scenarios. They were supported by academics working in this field to reflect on videos of parents helping their children at home.

Observation and analysis: beginning teachers developed their understanding through discussing and sharing their observations of parent/carer – teacher interactions in their various placement schools, as well as analysing a range of school policies and report templates.

Opportunity to practise: beginning teachers used the Dearing Class resource, which includes pen portraits of pupils in a fictional Year 4 class, their census data and progress across all areas of the curriculum, as well as pen portraits of fictional parents to role play parents’ evening scenarios and practise report writing skills. Guided by school-based tasks, these skills were then developed further in the authentic context of the placement class.

______________________

So, while ITAP as highly structured and prescribed content is new development, when seen more generally as a form of clinical practice, it has a long lineage within ITE generally and our own programmes more specifically. The DfE vision of expert input and feedback to ‘build the interaction between evidence-based theory and practice’ is something we will continue to develop in principled ways as our IPDs evolve over the coming years.

• Share on Facebook
• Share on Twitter
• Share on Google+
• Share on LinkedIn