This paper reports on a study of 'professional career-changers' undertaking pre-service teacher education in England. The study explored issues emerging from previous research which found that career-changers were significantly less likely to complete their training successfully than other entrants (AUTHOR 2015). This follow-up study attempted to shed light on the training experience of career-changers and also on how teacher educators perceived the distinctive training needs of such individuals. 

There has been significant interest in attracting career-changers in the teaching in many countries, in response to a number of high profile studies suggesting that a defining characteristic of 'high-performing' education systems is their capacity to attract high quality entrants to the teaching profession (Barber & Mourshed 2007; OECD 2011). Teacher education recruitment policies in many countries, therefore, focus on maximising entry quality (Furlong 2005, Ball & Forzani 2009, OECD 2011), often with an explicit focus on bringing 'elite' individuals into schools (e.g. the now global Teach for All/Teach First 'internship' model). In the England (and elsewhere), marketing initiatives have concentrated on emphasising teaching as a career for ambitious individuals who have been successful in other careers, often through various fast-track programmes for ‘elite’ career-changers from other professions, and from private sector industry/business backgrounds.

The rationale presented for this targeting of elites is that these individuals bring skills/experience that will have a significant impact on overall teacher quality (Freedman 2008; Tigchelaar et al 2010). However, although these and other studies have found that mature entrants bring valuable ‘transferable capacities’ to teaching, evidence regarding their wider impact on teacher effectiveness is inconclusive (Mayotte 2003; Haggard et al. 2006, Anthony & Ord 2008, AUTHOR 2015).  Whilst most earlier studies have been qualitative work focused on the experiences of career-changers as teachers, there has been little research into their pre-service teacher education experience.  Given that the study that prompted this work revealed high levels of non-completion for career-changers in their in-service teacher preparation programmes (AUTHOR 2015), this follow-up study aimed to investigate the experiences of career-changers during their teacher training programmes to shed light on possible factors leading to these non-completion rates. 

The research was informed by a well-established body of literature in the field, mainly drawing upon four key strands of literature 1) teacher induction and professional development, 2) teacher identity/values 3), leadership culture 4) performativity and school systems.  A stable teacher identity comes through developing a sense of ‘self-efficacy’ (Day et al. 2007), but this is often difficult to maintain in a profession characterised by increasingly overt external accountability constraints (Hargreaves 2000, Ball 2003, Apple 2005). Others (e.g. Sachs (2003) argue that self-efficacy and teacher agency can be bolstered through strong collegial values and inquiry-oriented practice (Sachs 2003, AUTHOR 2011). 

A recurring theme in studies of teacher motivation and efficacy is the crucial role of effective school leadership (Hord 1997, Katzenmeyer & Moller 2009, Day & Gu 2010) in fostering collaborative professionalism, so creating 'professional learning communities' (Stoll & Louis 2007).  As such, school leadership culture is key to maintaining teachers' motivation and efficacy.

This study explores the extent to which pre-service teacher education supports the development of 'collaborative professionalism', as well as the extent to which teacher education provision mets the needs of professional career-changers.  This is discussed in the context of the shift towards a 'school-led system' in English teacher education (Furlong 2013), in which schools are responsible for an increasing proportion of student teachers' professional development.  This paper reflects on the ways in which the support systems for career-changers may operate in a school-led system, exploring both opportunities for more personalised professional induction and the risks of context-specific 'parochialism'.

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