The PREP-In resource can help teacher educators, academic developers and school partners examine and strengthen how student teachers are prepared to teach for inclusion in diverse classrooms. Its survey questions, original portfolio analysis grid, vignette template and nine co-created vignettes provide complementary ways to explore what student teachers know, how they apply their learning, where they struggle and where they seek professional support.
Identifying preparation needs
Teacher educators can use the survey questions to explore student teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion, concerns, perceived preparedness and experiences of their programme. For example, responses could identify whether students feel sufficiently prepared to adapt teaching and assessment, use assistive technology or support pupils with behavioural and emotional needs. These findings can inform targeted teaching before placement and discussions about the relationship between confidence and competence. Questions about programme experience can also help identify where students need clearer guidance, practical resources or earlier inclusion-focused learning.
Using vignettes to understand student teachers’ experiences
The co-created vignettes offer a starting point for examining the challenges student teachers encounter when teaching diverse classes. They reveal both the strategies students feel prepared to use and their uncertainty when those strategies are insufficient. In seminars, students could identify what preparation a vignette’s student teacher draws upon, where their knowledge or confidence reaches its limits, and whom they approach for support. Discussion could explore how cooperating teachers, SEN professionals and university tutors can help students develop their judgement and extend their inclusive teaching repertoire.
Participatory co-creation and reflection
Using the vignette template, student teachers can collaboratively create fictional scenarios grounded in placement experiences. Each scenario can describe the classroom context, a pupil’s strengths and needs, the student teacher’s response, sources of support and areas in which further preparation is needed. Co-creation workshops can make students active contributors to understanding and improving ITE. Reviewing scenarios with peers, teacher educators and school mentors can generate alternative approaches and reveal gaps between university preparation and classroom demands. Scenarios should preserve confidentiality and avoid identifying pupils or schools.
Examining evidence of inclusive practice
The original portfolio analysis grid can support reflection on how student teachers demonstrate inclusion through planning, teaching materials, assessment and professional learning. Students could use selected indicators to review their portfolios, identify evidence of inclusive practice and discuss areas for development with tutors or mentors. Comparing entries over time can help examine progression from individual, reactive adaptations towards proactive planning for learner variability across the whole class.
Informing programme reform and professional learning
Programme teams can bring together survey responses, portfolio evidence and vignette discussions to review how preparation for inclusion develops across modules and placement. Curriculum-mapping workshops could identify whether students encounter essential concepts and practical approaches before they need them in schools, and whether opportunities to practise, receive feedback and reflect are sufficiently structured. Findings can inform earlier inclusion-focused provision, shared expectations across modules and stronger university–school collaboration. Academic developers and instructional designers can integrate these tools into staff workshops, placement preparation activities and online reflection tasks, ensuring that programme changes respond to student teachers’ demonstrated preparation needs.
