Relationships and early career teacher resilience: a role for school principals

Abstract

Given the current climate of high levels of teacher attrition, it is critically important that we understand what keeps early career teachers in the profession. This paper reports early findings from a project addressing the question: ‘What conditions are conducive to promoting teacher resilience and retention in the first two years of teaching?’ The research aims to identify the internal strengths and external strategies that promote resilience in early career teachers. School leaders and first year teachers from 59 schools across two states in Australia contributed to in-depth, open-ended interviews in which they talked about the experiences of beginning teaching. From this data, narrative portraits were developed and emerging themes documented and analysed. A strong emerging theme is how relationships with principals influence teachers’ feelings of personal and professional well-being, with both negative and positive effects reported. This paper uses portraits of two early career teachers to examine this theme. The findings provide important insights for principals who wish to foster resilience in early career teachers.

Keywords:

• early career teachers
• resilience
• relationships
• school leaders/principals

Acknowledgement

This paper is an outcome of a collaborative research project, funded by the Australian Research Council, between the University of South Australia, Murdoch University, Edith Cowan University, and eight education sector organisations in South Australia and Western Australia. The research team also includes Prof. Bruce Johnson, Prof. Barry Down, Dr Anna Sullivan, Dr Rosie Le Cornu and Ms Janet Hunter.