Developing Teachers

Abstract

This chapter builds upon but extends current understanding of the conditions for sustaining teachers’ learning and development over the course of their professional lives. From a social-ecological perspective and grounded in a synthesis of empirical research over the last two decades, the chapter explores variations in the needs of teachers’ professional learning and development over the course of their professional lives, and the ways in which the increasingly complex and diverse landscape of teaching supports or hinders their capacity to teach to their best in different schools and in different phases of their professional lives. A central argument of the chapter is that a continuing dialectic between the teacher and their practices is more likely to occur in schools where there is a supportive and trusting environment for individuals’ professional learning and development. Rather than focussing on the physical retention of teachers, there is a compelling argument for those responsible for raising standards in schools to take measures to ensure, as far as possible, the personal, professional, organisational and policy conditions of teachers’ work and lives are conducive to nurturing their learning and fostering their professional fulfilment, so that schools will retain teachers who are willing and able to teach to their best – what we call ‘quality retention’.