Across the globe governments are increasingly focusing on the importance of ‘quality’ teaching in the quest to improve student achievement (Flores, 2012). The focus on quality teaching places significant pressure on all teachers, but particularly on early career teachers who are subjected to close scrutiny and surveillance from their earliest introduction to the profession.

In many countries, few concessions are given to early career teachers as they negotiate complex roles as they make the transition from their teacher education programs to the profession. Early career teachers are under increased pressure to be not only ‘classroom ready’ but also to perform to the same levels as more experienced colleagues. The focus has been on supporting them by providing induction programs, mentoring and extra-time release time from face-to-face teaching (Howe, 2006; Sullivan & Morrison, 2014). This type of support often positions early career teachers as ‘lacking’ in knowledge and skills and the profession needing to ‘fix’ what is believed to be lacking in initial teacher education programs as if they take place in a vacuum, divorced from the activities of the profession. Such a focus on the individual teacher ignores the broader contextual and systemic influences that are playing out across the teaching profession and impacting and reflects are growing preoccupation with a  deficit view of early career teachers (Day & Sachs, 2004; Johnson et al., 2016).

This symposium will challenge dominant thinking about early career teachers and their work. It will offer a close and critical analysis of policies related to the work of early career teachers and how they are supported during this critical period of their working lives when they are vulnerable to being lost from the profession. It will provide good examples of practice which illustrate how early career teachers can be supported to transition into the profession in ways which are agentic for their development and which enables the profession as a whole to capitalise on the new knowledge and skills that these teachers bring to their classrooms and their students.

Rather than focus on how to ‘fix’ early career teachers, there is a need to reconsider the policies and practices that create the ‘problem’ and offer other ways forward. The papers will address the following key questions:

• What ideas dominate current thinking about practices relating to the retention of early career teachers?
• What are the policy drivers for current practices?
• What key ideologies justify these approaches?
• How can we present ethical alternatives to current approaches?

Each paper will address issues of early career teacher retention contributing to a greater understanding of how we can rethink the work of early career teachers so that they can transition to the profession successfully.

Day, C., & Sachs, J. (2004). Professionalism, performativity and empowerment: Discourses in the politics, policies and purposes of continuing professional development. In C. Day & J. Sachs (Eds.), International handbook on the continuing professional development of teachers (pp. 3-32). Maidenhead: Open University Press. Flores, M. A. (2012). Teachers' work and lives: A European perspective. In C. Day (Ed.), The Routledge international handbook of teacher and school development (pp. 94-107). London: Routledge. Howe, E. R. (2006). Exemplary Teacher Induction: An international review. Educational Philosophy & Theory, 38(3), 287-297. Johnson, B., Down, B., Le Cornu, R., Peters, J., Sullivan, A., Pearce, J., & Hunter, J. (2015 - forthcoming). Promoting early career teacher resilience: A socio-cultural and critical guide to action. London: Routledge. Sullivan, A. M., & Morrison, C. (2014). Enacting policy: the capacity of school leaders to support early career teachers through policy work. The Australian Educational Researcher, 41(5), 603-620. doi: 10.1007/s13384-014-0155-y