Since announcing in the Education White Paper (DfE, 2010) that initial teacher training would be reformed so that more training was "on the job," and that Teaching Schools would be created, giving outstanding schools the role of leading the training of teachers, the School Direct (SD) programme has been developed. Some teachers reading this may very well be involved in Teaching Schools and other alliances who have bid for and been given SD places, and may already have SD trainees, as there are about 400 in schools this year. Some will be almost entirely unaware of the School Direct programme and how it will provide trained teachers in the coming years. Wherever one is in this, there are issues that need to be considered, particularly from the perspective of science, some of which the author discusses in this article. The first issue is that of recruitment. The second issue is that of support. The third issue for science is that of subject knowledge, and particularly pedagogical subject knowledge. Finally, the quality of provision still lies with the provider, not the school.