Academically selective schooling continues to play a visible role in many education systems and is commonly justified through claims of improved instructional alignment and enhanced opportunities for high-achieving students (Jerrim & Sims, 2019). Such schools are therefore positioned as high-performance and high-expectation environments.

In Kazakhstan, academically selective education has become institutionalised through the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) network, which represents a national reform initiative aimed at raising the quality of secondary education through high academic standards and competitive, publicly funded access (Bairbayeva, 2023). As a result, NIS schools are positioned as high-status and high-performance institutions within the national education system.

Research on early-career teachers shows that the initial years of teaching are characterised by intensive professional learning, identity development and the gradual construction of classroom practice. Although formal induction and mentoring are recognised as important, early-career teachers often experience heavy workloads, additional responsibilities, limited feedback and uneven access to structured support, which can hinder their professional learning (McCormack et al.,2006).

Despite the growing prominence of academically selective schooling and the demanding environments in which such schools operate, there is limited empirical understanding of how early-career teachers working in these contexts interpret what it means to be an excellent teacher and how they navigate expectations associated with excellence in their everyday work. This qualitative study addresses this gap through semi-structured interviews with 6–8 early-career teachers working in an academically selective secondary school within the NIS system in Kazakhstan.

Research questions:

RQ1. How do early-career teachers in an academically selective school make sense of “excellence” in teaching?

RQ2. How do early-career teachers translate their understandings of excellence into everyday teaching practices and work-related decisions?

RQ3. What tensions do early-career teachers experience when navigating expectations of excellence, and what forms of support help them manage these expectations?

Research objectives:

The overall objective of this study is to explore how early-career teachers in an academically selective school context make sense of “excellence” in teaching and how these understandings shape their professional practice.

Specifically, the study aims to:

1. Examine how early-career teachers conceptualise and interpret the notion of “excellence” within their school context, including how these understandings develop during the early stages of their professional careers.
2. Explore how early-career teachers translate their understandings of excellence into everyday teaching practices and work-related decisions, such as lesson planning, assessment, classroom interaction, innovation, and the organisation of time and workload.
3. Identify tensions, ambiguities, and challenges experienced by early-career teachers when navigating expectations of excellence, as well as the forms of support that help them manage these expectations.
4. Generate insights relevant to teacher induction, mentoring, and professional learning in academically selective school settings, particularly in relation to how expectations of excellence are communicated and enacted in practice.

Theoretical framework

This study is grounded in sensemaking theory developed by Karl E. Weick, which conceptualises sensemaking as the process through which individuals construct meaning in situations of ambiguity in order to guide action (Weick & Weick, 1995). From this perspective, professional expectations are not simply implemented but are actively interpreted and reconstructed in everyday work.

The study adopts an educational sensemaking lens by drawing on Cynthia Coburn, who shows that teachers collectively interpret and mediate policy and professional expectations within their communities (Coburn, 2001), and on James P. Spillane, who conceptualises sensemaking as shaped by the interaction between individuals, organisations and institutional contexts, particularly for novices (Spillane & Anderson, 2014).

This framework enables the study to conceptualise excellence as a socially constructed and context-dependent concept negotiated by early-career teachers in an academically selective school context.

This study adopts a qualitative, interpretive research design in order to explore how early-career teachers make sense of excellence in teaching within an academically selective school context (Wiesner, 2022). Research context and sampling strategy The study is conducted in one academically selective secondary school within the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools (NIS) system in Kazakhstan. A single-school case is intentionally selected to enable in-depth and context-sensitive analysis of teachers’ sensemaking processes within a shared organisational environment. Focusing on one school allows examination of common routines, leadership practices and professional interactions that shape how meanings of excellence are constructed (Hunziker & Blankenagel, 2024). Purposive sampling is used to recruit 6–8 early-career teachers with up to five years of teaching experience. Participants are drawn from different subject areas to capture variation in professional experience while maintaining a common institutional context. A small sample is considered appropriate because the study prioritises analytic depth and rich accounts of professional sensemaking rather than representativeness (Crouch & McKenzie, 2006). Data collection Data is collected through semi-structured individual interviews. The interview protocol focuses on teachers’ understandings of excellence, perceived expectations from leadership and colleagues, everyday instructional and work-related decisions, experienced tensions, and sources of professional support. This format allows participants to articulate their own meanings while ensuring coverage of issues relevant to the research questions (Brown & Danaher, 2019). Data analysis Interview transcripts are analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. The analysis proceeds through iterative phases of familiarisation, initial coding, theme construction and refinement. Throughout the analytic process, particular attention is paid to how participants describe cues, interactions and organisational practices through which meanings of excellence are formed and negotiated (Braun & Clarke, 2019). Ethical considerations Ethical approval is obtained in accordance with institutional requirements. Participation is voluntary and based on informed consent. Pseudonyms are used, and all identifying information about participants and the school is removed. Data is securely stored and accessed only by the researcher. Care is taken to minimise potential professional risk for participants due to the high-status and performance-oriented nature of the school context.

The study is expected to identify how early-career teachers conceptualise and interpret excellence in teaching in an academically selective school context. In relation to the first research question, the findings will produce empirically grounded categories of how excellence is understood by teachers, for example in terms of student academic outcomes, pedagogical quality, responsiveness to high-achieving learners, innovation, professional commitment and alignment with school culture. The study will also clarify how these meanings are shaped through everyday interaction with colleagues, leadership practices and institutional norms. In relation to the second research question, the study is expected to show how early-career teachers translate their understandings of excellence into everyday teaching practices and work-related decisions. The findings will illustrate how interpretations of excellence inform lesson planning, assessment practices, classroom interaction, use of innovative approaches, allocation of time, prioritisation of tasks and organisation of workload. This will provide insight into how teachers’ sensemaking of excellence guides professional judgement in daily work. In relation to the third research question, the study is expected to reveal key tensions experienced by early-career teachers when navigating expectations of excellence in a high-performance school environment. These are likely to include tensions between academic outcomes and student wellbeing, innovation and workload, institutional expectations and personal professional values, and short-term performance demands and sustainable professional development. The findings will also identify forms of support that teachers perceive as enabling them to manage these tensions, including collegial collaboration, mentoring, leadership practices and informal professional communities. Overall, the study is expected to contribute a coherent understanding of how excellence is constructed, enacted and negotiated by early-career teachers in an academically selective school context, and to inform induction and professional learning practices in similar high-expectation school settings.

Bairbayeva, S. (2023, October). Advancing Equity and Diversity: A Comprehensive Case Study of Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools in Secondary Education. In Publisher. agency: Proceedings of the 4th International Scientific Conference «Reviews of Modern Science»(October 19-20, 2023). Zürich, Switzerland, 2023. 256p (p. 13). Universität Luzern. Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019). Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, 11(4), 589–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1628806 Brown, A., & Danaher, P. A. (2019). CHE Principles: facilitating authentic and dialogical semi-structured interviews in educational research. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 42(1), 76–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727X.2017.1379987 Coburn, C. E. (2001). Collective Sensemaking about Reading: How Teachers Mediate Reading Policy in Their Professional Communities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 23(2), 145-170. https://doi.org/10.3102/01623737023002145 Crouch, M., & McKenzie, H. (2006). The logic of small samples in interview-based qualitative research. Social Science Information, 45(4), 483-499. https://doi.org/10.1177/0539018406069584 Hunziker, S., Blankenagel, M. (2024). Single Case Research Design. In: Research Design in Business and Management. Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42739-9_8 Jerrim, J., & Sims, S. (2019). How Do Academically Selective School Systems Affect Pupils’ Social-Emotional Competencies? New Evidence From the Millennium Cohort Study. American Educational Research Journal, 56(5), 1769-1799. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219830965 McCormack, A., Gore, J., & Thomas, K. (2006). Early Career Teacher Professional Learning. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 34(1), 95–113. https://doi.org/10.1080/13598660500480282 Spillane, J. P., & Anderson, L. (2014). The Architecture of Anticipation and Novices’ Emerging Understandings of the Principal Position: Occupational Sense Making at the Intersection of Individual, Organization, and Institution. Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education, 116(7), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811411600705 Weick, K. E., & Weick, K. E. (1995). Sensemaking in organizations (Vol. 3, No. 10.1002). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage publications. Wiesner, C. (2022). Doing qualitative and interpretative research: reflecting principles and principled challenges. Political Research Exchange, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/2474736X.2022.2127372