This paper, focussing on the experience of 17 teachers in the first year of their professional practice in England, is located within a three-year longitudinal study (see Burn et al. 2000, 2003, Hagger et al. 2008, Mutton et al. 2009). It sets out to compare these teachers’ expectations of their first year in the profession with accounts of their actual experiences collected at a specific point each term, and in a later review of the year as a whole. As might be anticipated, the beginning teachers’ previous school-based experiences meant that their expectations were already shaped by sustained periods of work in school. They therefore proved quite realistic in many respects. However the unique contexts of their individual schools meant that they could not anticipate in any detail the learning that they would need to undertake. Provisional analysis reveals four important aspects of their professional practice within which significant contrasts between expectations and reality were found: the beginning teachers’ own professional learning; the school students and their learning; schools and schooling; professional relationships. The findings have important implications not merely for those who support beginning teachers during the induction period, but also for those who prepare them for it.