With increasing focus on student outcomes the role of research informed teaching is once again at the fore in respect of raising the standards of teaching within higher education (Joseph-Richard, 2020; DfE, 2017). Despite sector wide acknowledgement that “excellent teaching goes hand in hand with excellent research” (HEA, 2016:3) there have been a number of difficulties integrating research informed teaching within higher education in a conscious and meaningful way (Mathieson, 2019). This topic is particularly pertinent within teaching on social work qualifying programmes, as once qualified social workers are regulated against their demonstration of evidence informed practice; the integration of research and social work in day to day activities (Social Work England, 2020).

This paper explores how the findings from my own doctoral research were drawn upon to redevelop a module on the newly introduced social work degree apprenticeship programme. My research found that there was a significant dissonance between the role that social workers are educated for and regulated against, and the role that they are organised to perform within local authorities. Reflecting on some of the challenges of the newly introduced apprenticeship programme, in particular the potential limitations of work based social work qualifying programmes, I explored the ways in which the barriers to accessing a thorough social work education could be addressed in light of deeper understandings of the actualities of social work practice as it is performed in local authorities.