Across the literature, the importance of formal supports for beginning teachers is clear. Quality mentoring and induction programmes, predicated on opportunity rather than deficit perspectives, recognise and develop beginning teachers’ existing strengths and capabilities, thus facilitating the formation of professional identities in the transition from pre-service to practice (Skytterstad et al. 2025; Antonsen et al. 2025; Kvam et al. 2024).

Yet, beginning teacher learning does not solely occur within formal professional development activities. Research confirms that much workplace learning in the first year of teaching is informal, reactive and implicit (Colognesi et al. 2020). Conceived of as non-didactic and embedded in meaningful, chosen activities (Rogoff et al. 2016), this type of unstructured workplace learning, which occurs through daily collegial interactions, is, frequently, under-valued in systems that focus on formal learning (Kelchtermans 2019). Given this circumstance, researchers have recently investigated the specific role ofinformal support in the way beginners experience the induction process (e.g., Ulvik et al. 2023).Motivated by this trend, this study starts from the premise that beginning teachers commence practice not only as the recipients of formal support structures, but simultaneously function in informal support networks (März & Kelchtermans 2020).

Acknowledging the role school-based professional relationships play in informal workplace learning, this study focuses on the everyday, informal workplace learning of nine beginning primary teachers, in Ireland, during the course of their initial or induction year of practice, post-graduation.

The main research question is: What kinds of informal support relationships do the participating beginner teachers seek during the course of their initial year of practice?

Guided by the research question, the study aims to contribute knowledge that can enhance the induction phase for beginning teachers.

As ‘networked’ beings, beginning teachers are embedded in a web of relationships with ‘others’ in their school (Kelchtermans 2019). This relationality forms the basis for the prevalence of informal workplace learning in the form of ‘natural mentoring’ and the existence of ‘relational conditions’ (McNally et al. 2009).

While the network of professional relationships in a school serves to support beginning teachers materially, socially, and emotionally, the fundamentally social and relational nature of the teaching role also constitutes a potential source of stress for beginners. Illustrative of the interpretative negotiations that are a central element of school-based practice, beginning teachers will be selective in their interactions when seeking support.This selectivity means that most requests on the parts of beginners are self-initiated (Antonsen et al. 2025).

Teachers generally engage in self-initiated informal workplace learning through two primary approaches. Though characterised by a degree of overlap, these are, firstly, through collaborative interaction with others and, secondly, through observation of otherswithout interaction (Özyildirim et al. 2025;  Wang et al. 2024). Together, both approaches signal the school workplace as an active or mediating forcein the process of beginner teacher learning.

Collaborative interaction with others, involves beginners self-initiating informal support opportunities from ‘sought after’ experienced staff colleagues. These proactive, interpersonal encounters, initiated by agentic, ‘networking’ beginners (März and Kelchtermans 2020), take the form of professional conversations conducted with colleagues, or involve the exchange of pedagogical materials and resources.

The observation of otherswithout interaction, adopts an intrapersonal, self-reflective approach towards informal learning. Equating almost to ‘learning by oneself’, these indirect interactions involve beginners observing colleagues ‘through the cracks’ (Solomon et al. 2006), as they enact their roles around the school. This involves the observation of colleagues’ practices and object use, across classrooms, corridors, stairways, and playgrounds, particularly from glimpsing their classroom arrangements, pedagogical materials or pupils' products. Indirect interaction also involves beginners overhearing discussions among teaching colleagues in the school staffroom(Christensen et al. 2018).

In the final semester of their teacher education programme, student teachers were invited to voluntarily provide their contact details to be part of the study. In all, thirty student teachers volunteered to participate in the study. Subsequently, at the commencement of the school-year in September, employing a multiple-case study research design (Cohen et al. 2018), nine participants, six females and three males, ranging in age from 22 to 31 years, who worked as beginning teachers in nine separate schools, were purposively selected from among the cohort of thirty volunteers. Selection determinants related to workplace location, feasibility, manageability and the vagaries of the beginning teacher employment market. That the nine participants worked in nine different schools maximised the variation characterising the research sample (Flyvbjerg 2006). This constitutes a methodological advantage, as prior research has shown how the beginning year of practice is always influenced by the context and culture specific to a school (März & Kelchtermans 2020). However, the limited size and purposive composition of the research sample means that the concept of transferability rather than generalizability applies to the study conclusions. To elicit beginning teachers’ narrative accounts of their first-year experiences, data, in the form of anecdotal narratives of lived experience, was collected through semi-structured, individual conversational interviews with each of the nine research participants (Swain & King 2022). Anecdotes are understood here as narrative accounts of incidents, situations, occurrences and episodes, experienced by the participating beginning teachers, as they relate to the aim and purpose of the study. A three-cycle, individual interview design facilitated continuing contact with each research participant. Therefore, throughout their initial year of occupational experience, three individual conversational interviews were conducted with each participant, i.e., during October, March and June of the beginning year of practice. Repeated readings of the data set progressively refined the selection of data for presentation. Operationally, a system based on the colour coding of interview transcripts was devised. While selected data can be considered to reflect the experiences of multiple participants, nonetheless, informed by constructivist principles relating to diversity, multiple realities and the uniqueness of each case, the singularities of personal experience remain to the fore. Thus, this study perceives beginning practice as primarily embedded in the unique lives of individuals. Anonymity arising from the use of pseudonyms means that no uniquely identifying information is attached to collected data.

This study illustrates how beginning teachers not only function within the available formal support structures of their school, but also create their own informal support networks within the school organisation. These informal networks can compensate for or complement formal mentoring support, giving our beginners a much broader support network. Interview data are drawn upon to substantiate findings which indicate that beginning teachers generally engage in self-initiated, informal workplace learning through two primary approaches. Though characterised by a degree of overlap, these are, firstly, through collaborative interaction with others and, secondly, through observation of others without interaction. Together, both approaches signal the school workplace as an active or mediating force in the process of beginner teacher learning. As with Shanks (2023), its essence and usefulness are to be found in its informality and “incidentality”. Thus, the study highlights the highly personal, contextualised informal learning of beginning teachers and the relevance of their workplace relationships for their professional development. Additionally, the study shows how the understanding of beginning teaching can be enriched through a wider appreciation of the school as workplace, and workplace learning. While not downplaying the importance of formalised school-based mentoring by skilled mentor teachers, nonetheless, the study highlights the need for those who work with beginning teachers to move beyond solely privileging formal mentoring and induction and focus on informal relationships and how to nurture and encourage them. Having documented how participants benefited informally at their school from experienced colleagues, an argument is advanced for more investigation into the value of informal support and social learning for beginning teachers. In this regard, more in-depth research is required to open up the largely hidden world of workplace learning so that new teachers can be more comprehensively supported in their transition into the teaching profession.

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