Underwhelmed and playing it safe: newly qualified primary teachers’ mentoring and probationary-related experiences during induction

Abstract

Framed within the burgeoning policy and research literature on teacher induction internationally, this paper focuses on the mentoring and probationary-related experiences of nine newly qualified primary teachers in the Republic of Ireland, during the course of their initial year of workplace practice, post-graduation. Gleaning newly qualified teachers’ (NQTs’) perspectives on these matters is opportune, as the Teaching Council’s new model of induction entitled Droichead (bridge in Irish) is envisaged to become the sole induction and probation route for all NQTs. Transacted during the 2010/2011 school year, when the induction and probationary arrangements in place were those that the Droichead initiative is intended to replace, a three-cycle, individual interview design facilitated continuing contact with each NQT. Selected, representative interview data are utilised to illustrate the dynamics of NQTs’ experiences of mentoring and probationary-related processes. Empirically based findings establish, firstly, beginner complicity in the transaction of narrowly conceived mentoring support; secondly, enamorment of the reifications of initial teacher education-phase teaching practice when negotiating probationary processes; thirdly, the valuing of techniques that respond to immediate, probationary-related requirements over more complex forms of practice; and fourthly, the inevitable and essential interconnectedness of mentoring and probationary processes. The paper concludes with implications for the design and implementation of induction programmes.

Keywords:

• newly qualified teacher (NQT)
• induction
• mentoring
• probation
• primary

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the nine NQTs who participated in the doctoral study on which this paper is based. Their exemplary commitment and generosity of spirit eased the fieldwork phase of the study very considerably – all while they juggled numerous demands arising from their initial year in the workplace.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Dan O’Sullivan is a lecturer at the School of Education, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. He lectures on inclusion-related issues on a range of postgraduate teacher education programmes. His research interests centre on inclusive schooling, literacies, assessment, initial teacher education, and the induction and continuing professional development of teachers.

Paul Conway is a Professor in the School of Education, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. Informed by cognitive and socio-cultural perspectives on learning and development, his research focuses on teacher education, learning theories, the psychology and pedagogy of literacy and mathematics, and e-learning. He recently co-authored a commissioned research report on the Droichead teacher induction programme (Smyth et al. 2016).

Additional information

Funding

This research was part supported by the National University of Ireland (NUI) Dr Mary L. Thornton Scholarship in Education awarded to the first author.