Integrative reflective practice in initial teacher education: a creative approach in diverse and practice-based contexts.

Integrative Reflective Practice (IRP) is a practice-based approach to reflection developed in response to challenges within Initial Teacher Education (ITE), where reflection may often be the subject of discussion more than it is practised, and where portfolio-based approaches can become instrumental and performative rather than generative.
This paper examines the implementation and adaptation of IRP within a university-led post-compulsory ITE partnership in the North-East of England (UK), across six centres and diverse cohorts of pre-service and in-service trainees from academic and vocational disciplines. The approach was introduced through structured workshops and embedded within evolving programme design over a three-year period.
Drawing on programme-level evaluation data, including end-of-course questionnaires and qualitative student feedback, the paper explores how reflective activity can be repositioned as a more process-oriented and flexible practice. Trainees report increased confidence and an enhanced sense of the relevance of reflecting to their professional development.
Rather than proposing IRP as a fixed or universally applicable model, the paper offers a practice-based account of how reflective approaches can be enacted, adapted, and sustained within ITE contexts. It contributes to discussions about how reflective practice is taught and experienced, and how the relationship between private reflection and assessed professional reflection might be more effectively supported.