CC BY-NC 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 InternationalScholes, Stephen C.Dey, DonnaGreen, ChristopherMichael, ElunedOates, CatrionaPayne, OrlaithShirazi, TaraStevenson, Sarah2025-09-172025-09-15Scholes, S.C., Dey, D., Green, C., Michael, E., Oates, C., Payne, O., Shirazi, T. and Stevenson, S. (2025) ‘The power of placements: reflections on a joyful activity to empower teacher educators’, Education in the North, 32(2), pp. 22–40. Available at: https://doi.org/10.26203/2HWF-FW78.0424-5512https://eresearch.qmu.ac.uk/handle/20.500.12289/14408https://doi.org/10.26203/2hwf-fw78Stephen C. Scholes - ORCID: 0000-0002-5808-6121 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5808-6121Catriona Oates - ORCID: 0000-0001-9043-3122 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9043-3122In Scottish university-based initial teacher education (ITE), university-based teacher educators support and assess preservice teachers during school placements. This work requires substantial knowledge and skills, rapid relationship building, and extensive travel. Teacher educators navigate emotionally demanding situations, balancing rigorous standards with individual growth when making crucial professional judgements. This piece positions school placements as a joyful and empowering experience. Through curated reflections from eight teacher educators across four Scottish universities, it explores key themes, demonstrating the empowering potential of placement practice. This contribution aims to foster a positive self-image among teacher educators and highlight the value of placement work. In doing so, it challenges institutional views that sometimes overlook the skill, intellectual rigour, and pastoral expertise essential to effective teacher-educators’ placement practice.22-40en© 2025 Scholes et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/Initial Teacher EducationSchool PlacementTeacher EducationJoyScotlandArticle