With work-based learning (WBL) forming an increasingly prevalent dimension of modern higher education practice, conceptual models of the pedagogies underpinning WBL are increasingly emerging. There is broadening recognition of the need to capture and represent the values and presuppositions underlying WBL in order to support facilitators and learners engaged in WBL for the first time. Accordingly, the current study proposes a new characterisation of WB higher education which can helpfully inform the design and delivery of WBL curricula, schemes of work and teaching and learning strategies. Informed by the authors' extensive facilitation of WBL programmes for such diverse fields of professional practice as dance teaching, event management, security and the military, the model represents WBL as a triadic learning endeavour in which student, work-based facilitator and university tutor are engaged in a mode of learning which is best conceived as "academy-aligned" rather than "academy-based", and in which the signature pedagogic principle is one of "responsive facilitation". The application of the model in a number of programmes is demonstrated and some recommendations for WB practice outlined.