Sustaining the teaching profession: innovating the ‘golden thread’ in university-led teacher education

This paper examines the implications of England's ‘golden thread’ policy framework for teacher education, which describes a state-mandated, linear model of professional learning from initial teacher training and education through to continuing professional development. Our collaborative retrospective analysis of three empirical studies within a university-led teacher education partnership critically examines the experiences of student teachers, early career teachers and mid- to late-career educators. The findings reveal that the policy network of the golden thread, as operationalised through the initial teacher training and early career framework and national professional qualifications, promotes a reductive, compliance-oriented model that marginalises professional agency, critical inquiry and ontological development. In contrast, by considering international movements in many nations towards the kinds of reductive models that dominate in England, the paper argues that to tackle recurrent issues of teacher recruitment and retention, meaningful teacher education must transcend technocratic prescriptions and embrace complexity, reflexivity and co-construction across career stages—a rich tapestry, instead of a single, golden thread. An effective counterweight to performative policy regimes, therefore, requires an original reconceptualisation of the golden thread, in England and beyond, so that a rich, co-constructed and dynamic tapestry supports teachers not only to survive but to thrive in increasingly complex educational environments.