Teacher shortages and retention problems occur globally. This paper explores support for Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs), in particular the role of mentoring. Reasons for mentoring NQTs include combating isolation and fostering collaboration, enhancing professional practice and retaining teachers in the profession. Three different national…

Those training to become teachers in England during the 2019/20 academic year were severely impacted by the first national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many missing school placements, giving them less time to build experience and confidence before becoming newly qualified teachers (NQTs). Their first year of teaching was also…

There are many factors and duties that novice teachers do not know about when they enter the profession. Isolation, for instance, affects physical education (PE) teachers because the position often comes with a secluded workplace adjacent to the gym and through the subject's marginalization. These challenges, among others, can send the novice…

The main purpose of this study is to reveal the view of preschool teachers who are in the first five years of the occupation about mentoring programs applied to them. To reveal the experiences and opinions of the teachers, the qualitative research design, phenomenology, was used. To determine the preschool teachers who are in the first 5 years of…

When new academics begin university life, the support they receive in their departments can vary. For many their initial experiences of the new job can be daunting. In this article 10 new academics from a range of disciplines were involved in a community of practice, known as Catalyst, to support them finding their feet within the university.…

The aim of this article is to shed light on the complex role of drama teaching and drama teachers' learning trajectories. Within a socio-cultural framework of understanding, an ethnographic study was conducted on the culture and context of drama implementation in schools. The theory of practice architectures by Stephen Kemmis and Peter Grootenboer…

Isolation, organisational pressures, and role-related distress, can result in teachers, particularly early career teachers (ECTs), experiencing greater risk of burnout. For many ECTs, a lack of practical strategies for dealing with these conditions contributes to this. Using self-study methodology, this research unpacks why ECTs experience…

New academics entering higher education are especially vulnerable if teaching in a post-colonial classroom is not foregrounded as an explicit part of their professional induction. Drawing on a study of a professional development programme for induction to teaching, this paper explicates how six new academics confront specific challenges of…

This paper offers an autoethnographic account of my first academic year as a Human Geography lecturer at a 'new' public university in the North West of England. This research is timely and much needed, since teaching at universities in England has recently come under increasing scrutiny. The Teaching Excellence Framework is a new scheme, which…

Many early-career teachers (ECTs) begin their teaching careers in rural and remote schools in Australia, and do not stay long, with consequences for their own lives, and for their students, schools and communities. By understanding how first-year ECTs navigate personal (subjective) and contextual (objective) conditions, opportunities to disrupt…

This article reports on a focus group study of newly qualified early childhood teachers' experiences during their first year of teaching. It argues that focus groups have the potential to invite dialogical engagement in ways that support teachers' exploration of their own identities, and it emphasises the significant role group context plays in…

The Program for Excellence in Teaching (PET) conducted in Israel aspires towards training excellent teachers but also towards creating agents of change within the educational system. This qualitative study, focusing on 21 students and beginning teachers who participated in the PET at a certain college of education in Israel, examines their…

The purpose of this study is to elaborate on the emotional problems faced by Turkish early childhood teachers in their interaction with students, parents, administrators and colleagues in the first three years of their professional lives. Data for this research consists of in-depth interviews with Turkish kindergarten teachers, where these…

Pre-service teachers need to be prepared to teach in both rural and urban contexts. Preparation to teach multi-grade classes in rural schools is excellent preparation for teaching any class, including urban single-grade classes. Based on our previous research and experience, we designed a unit to prepare our pre-service teachers for the issues…

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered…