This paper examines the impact and implications on initial teacher education (ITE) of the crisis brought about by the Covid-19 lockdown of schools and universities from the perspectives of four university providers in England. The start of the pandemic meant that, in England, schools were closed to all but vulnerable pupils and the children of ‘key workers’, and so the normal placements of students in teacher education (ITE students) could not continue. The ‘virtualisation’ of the ITE programmes by, in some cases, both schools and universities, raised significant issues of both equity and pedagogy. The loss of time on school placement had the effect of lost opportunities for practising teaching but increasing the time for reading and reflection. We consider the effects on a teacher education programme when the practicum experience is abruptly curtailed, yet the programme is able to continue in a different way. We present a model framework for a new digital pedagogy for ITE and discuss the opportunities and affordances available as the post-Covid educational landscape emerges, and suggest that the Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity to reflect on the idea that practicum experience may be a necessary but not, in itself, a sufficient condition for teacher learning.

Further and higher education have witnessed something of a paradigm shift in recent years. This article aims to examine the reasons behind, and the possible impact on, academic staff and students of one aspect of the so‐called marketisation of education – namely, the increased importance of institutional marketing. Aspects of marketing theory are used to argue that gaps have developed in some cases between the marketing rhetoric and the experienced reality of staff and students. It is suggested that such gaps can create tensions and difficulties, that action needs to be taken to bridge any such gaps, and that there is a need to reaffirm some of the previously valued aspects of further and higher education.

The work of Vygotsky is widely used in teacher education and other education-related literature, in discussion of sociocultural perspectives, and in relation to themes such as second language acquisition, the teaching of mathematics, and approaches to teaching and learning. Much of this work gives the impression that Vygotsky’s work is unproblematic. This paper challenges that view. It is argued that Vygotsky’s descriptions of learning and teaching draw on sociocultural themes but that the theoretical account he proposed to explain those descriptions is disputable. The possible implications for thinking about child development, learning, teaching, and teacher education are then considered.

The work of the late Donald Schön has become influential in the education of many professionals, including teachers. Yet, until recently, comparatively little attention has been paid to difficulties in Schön's work. This article attempts a critique of Schön's notion of reflection by interweaving philosophical concerns and empirical work, and concludes by suggesting that such a critique is capable of beginning to describe a new approach to reflective practice.

There can be little doubting the importance in teacher education of the notion of reflective practice. One of the most widely cited authors in the field is Donald Schon. In English teacher education, some have seen Schon's work as justifying a move toward school-based training in an attempt to bridge the alleged gap between the theoretical and practical aspects of teacher education (Furlong et al., 1988, p. 123). In this paper this view is challenged; it is suggested that Schon's work, once placed within the context of a Wittgensteinian description of language, can be reinterpreted to support a wider notion of teacher education and professional development.