In England and Wales, Initial Teacher Education depends upon a legal and contractual partnership between schools and higher education institutions in which teacher mentors are often trained to support student teacher development. This article investigates the much less formal kind of partnership model that has evolved in Scotland, using one university's Postgraduate Certificate of Education (PGCE)(Secondary) programme as a case study. This research shows that the partnership is based on goodwill and relationships built up over time between university and school staff. However, school staff generally have only a weak understanding of the overall direction of the PGCE programme and they are uncertain about how best to fulfill their role in placement supervision. Partly in consequence, students find it hard to integrate school and university experiences and the quality of placement is very uneven. This article identifies scope for the development of mentoring skills among teachers and argue that current developments in Scottish education mean that this is a propitious time to begin to strengthen the links between school and university components of PGCE programmes.