We explored primary pre-service teachers' beliefs about challenging mathematical tasks and the role they perceived their initial teacher education played in influencing those aspects. Fifty-seven pre-service teachers completed an online questionnaire, and four participants were individually interviewed. Results showed that most participants recognised the importance of teaching with challenging mathematical tasks even prior to exposure to such content in their teacher education program. The teacher education program was perceived to have positively impacted final year pre-service teachers' perspectives about challenging tasks. Implications for teacher education regarding challenging tasks are discussed.