Abstract
The Australian Federal Government's response to perceived poor results in international tests was to mandate the development of a set of national standards for teachers. Implemented at all levels of teaching, the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST) now play a significant role in the training and assessment of pre-service teachers. This paper identifies how pre-service teachers in their final semester of study feel about the APST and what they identify as their needs in relation to them. The paper also offers a Targeted Intervention model (TI) as a way of mitigating pre-service teachers' perceived feelings about the APST by explicitly supporting their needs in relation to them.