This paper describes the school-based internship program developed at the Southern Cross University in New South Wales, Australia. Arrangements are described for interns' time spent in classrooms, collaborative teaching strategies which underpin intern placements, the security which supports interns' practice, and approaches to integrate their practice with university studies. Processes of appraisal of interns' development are explained, and the potential professional development of cooperating teachers brought about by mentoring interns is examined. The internship program, which is the central component of the Bachelor of Teaching (Primary) course, is characterized by: a partnership between the university and schools, whole-day experiences in schools each week for paired interns in supportive classrooms, and explicitly integrated study and practice. The internship arrangements were developed specifically to remove the abstruse in initial training and to effect more explicit and thereby improved teaching by graduates. (JDD)