Transitions between schools as an early-career teacher

Today we're all on our own without a guest, because we're presenting original Cardiff Met research! But our colleague Sioned Dafydd is with us in spirit as she was a key member of the three-person research team that carried out this work.

Today we're looking at what happens when student teachers change from one school placement to another, and when they move from their initial teacher education into their first job. In particular, we're focusing on the part that Wales's Professional Standards for Teaching and Leadership have to play, but many of the issues we uncovered are universal for all of us who work with new members of the profession.

Using the results of interviews with student teachers and their school-based mentors over the course of a year (plus a final interview with three of our participants once they had secured jobs), we pieced together what goes on when new teachers make the transition from one school to another. With a little help from theories by Wenger, Maton and Korthagen & Lagerwerf, we try to explain what causes those tricky moments in new schools when people feel they've gone backwards, and propose some ways to make things easier.

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Recorded in studio D0.18 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 16th December 2024