To be a novice is a challenge in any kind of work-place. The fact the the newcomer has special needs that the rest of the workplace community should be aware of seems to be ackonowledged in different kinds of professions and businesses. This induction period is necessary in order to learn and understand the areas of expectaions and responsibility.. From the leadership’s point of view this arrangement is looked upon as an investigation in future for the workplace as well as the newcomer. This is not always the fact for newly qualified teachers. International research documents that novice teachers meet a lot of challenges during their first years of teaching, from challenges in teaching, class management, asssessment, communication colleagues and parents, understanding the school culture, just to mention a few ( Lazovsky & Reichenberg, 2006; Dymoke & Harrison, 2006; Rippon & Martin, 2003; Feiman-Nemser, 2001; Achinstein, 2006; among others). Until recently it has not fully been recognised how difficult the first period is for teachers. Research on novice teachers points to the conflict between reality and ideal which causes the practice shock for novice teachers when starting their first job (Achinstein, 2006; Flores & Day, 2006). Since we know that teachers have a great impact on pupils’ experiences and outcome of school (Hattie, 2003; Teachers Matter, OECD, 2005) it should be a reason for concern that within the next 5-10 years many countries have to replace a large number of teachers who will retire and that many novice teachers leave the profession during the first years. However, the present situastion in Norway is that new teachers are expected to be fully qualified and to dive into the profession with the same expertise as more experienced colleagues (Ulvik et al. 2009). There is, though, a growing awareness of the challenge of being new in school and in the profession, and there is a national project in collaboration with teacher education institutions called, New in School (Ny i skolen). The focus of the current study is on how principals and newly educated teachers themselves look at novice teachers’ challenges, and what they think is the best way of supporting the newcomers. The framework of the study is the implementation of the support project for secondary school novices by the Department of Teacher Education in the region of Bergen and its surroundings. This framwork assumes that the novice teacher should have a mentor in school.

The research instrument is a semi-structured interview which was conducted with nine novice teachers in three upper secondary schools at the end of the school year. During the following autumn the principals at the same three secondary schools were interviewed and asked the same questions. Novice teachers were asked what kind of challenges they faced as teachers, how they handled their challenges, and finally what kind of support they needed and actually got. They were also asked about their experiences from participation in the network. The principals were asked how they regarded the same questions from their position. Each interview was recorded and lasted about 45 minutes.

We are still in the process of analyzing data. A preliminary analysis shows that there is little new in terms of the challenges, but there is another side concerning the novice teacher which provides a brighter picture. What the newly qualified teachers seem to ask for is support from more than one person or mentor. Their need for support is on different levels and consequently they need to collaborate with experienced colleauges and novice peers as well as teacher educators in the network depending on the nature of the challenge they face. The principals seem to be aware of the novice teachers’ challenges. However the way they understand the newcomers’ need for support is different from the novice teachers themselves. An important finding as we see it is that as school leaders they lack the autonomy of deciding what kind of enterprises they would like to implement.