Traductor de constelaciones

When interviewing Lottie, it was clear that her experiences moving schools and job roles had influenced both her teaching practice and teacher efficacy beliefs. I labelled the concept of moving schools ‘coping with transitions’ because the interviews suggested that these transitions created some difficulties for teachers that they needed to resolve in some way. After interviewing Lottie, I decided to approach other teachers for interview (through the process of theoretical sampling) who had also experienced moving school fairly recently in order to explore the concept further.

Lottie found moving schools challenging in terms of adjusting to the differences in school practices. She had spent three years developing confidence in the schemes of work and exam syllabuses at her previous school and then had to adjust her teaching practices when moving schools. She felt that she had to start again ‘I was back to square one again’ (line 36) and found that methods that worked at her old school didn’t work at a different school ‘….trying to use a

resource from my old school was like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole ....’

(lines 116-117). It is not difficult to see how this transition could be quite stressful for a teacher, particularly if they were very comfortable with their teaching style and previous school practices. Certainly, it was obvious when talking to Annie (a head of department) that adjusting to new exam syllabuses had knocked her confidence and created anxiety in terms of feeling prepared for lessons.

‘…that confidence does go in the exams because I don’t know what the exam papers look like …’ (Annie, lines 24-26)

‘…I had a file of them all prepared ready for my lessons....whereas now I’m trying to recreate that again. So it’s always trying to recreate whereas if you stay longer in a school you can establish really good rhythms with that type of stuff.’ (Annie, lines 27-30)

Of note here is Annie’s comments about establishing rhythms in her teaching, indicating the cyclical nature of teaching. This is something that other teachers

year. In a secondary school, teachers will often teach the same course or schemes of work to different classes each year, consequently building up a collection of resources and lesson ideas. Teachers therefore develop patterns of behaviour that can be reproduced and improved each year. The more they repeat and improve upon pedagogy, the more confident they may become in their teaching skills. Moving school seems to interrupt these rhythms and disrupt a teacher’s prior efficacy beliefs. It may take time for a teacher to develop new rhythms and for their teacher efficacy beliefs to return to their previous level.

Some of the anxiety around the transition between schools was related to establishing yourself and proving efficacy. Lottie, as a fairly young teacher, appeared to feel that her efficacy was being questioned by new colleagues who mistook her for a newly qualified teacher.

“….some of the older people thought I was an NQT, I had to kinda assert my authority and stand my ground again. But that was fine, I dealt with that.”

(Lottie, lines 36-38)

For Lottie, it was important that colleagues knew she had some experience and knew what she was doing. She implies that NQTs are treated differently than other staff and they have different expectations of them. There is no indication that Lottie’s own efficacy beliefs were threatened by this situation. In fact, having to prove her efficacy and management skills seems to have been a challenge that Lottie felt very motivated to do. It appeared to encourage her to try even harder to be the best teacher she could be which then reinforced her positive efficacy beliefs. In other words, having to prove yourself is mutually reinforcing, both for your colleagues and yourself.

Even for Annie, an experienced teacher moving into a sideways role, the need to be respected and valued by colleagues in a new school is still there.

‘It takes time to establish yourself………..’ (Annie, lines 18-19)

However, the experience appears to have been less positive for Annie. She seems to have found it more difficult to cope with the demands of proving efficacy to colleagues and her students. When her efficacy was questioned by the parents of

a student, it caused Annie to experience efficacy doubts, which encouraged her to work even harder to produce better lessons (see section 4.2.1). She found it difficult to cope with the demands of the head of department role, reporting that she was focusing so much on this aspect of her role that she had less time for her teaching role. Moving into a senior role such as head of department within a new school is perhaps more difficult than moving to a teaching role. It would certainly demand the teacher to get to grips with many more new policies and practices. It also carries a heavier burden in terms of proving efficacy, as a senior role

carries expectations for the individual to be a good teacher and a good manager. Coping with moving to a new school was made worse by what Lottie considered to be a poor induction. Lottie felt her needs as a teacher moving schools were not specifically addressed and therefore she had to source the information for

herself. Lottie pointed out that some teachers would not do this (‘…I’m quite

outspoken……there are other staff in the school who are not happy about doing that…’ Lottie, lines 72-74) and therefore moving schools would be even more

difficult for them. This could suggest that organisational features of a school could leave some teachers at a disadvantage due to differences in their personality and approach to new situations.

However, moving schools was not necessarily a negative event for teachers. Suzy has moved schools three or four times in her nine year teaching career and although she identifies with the fact it can be stressful due to ‘new ways of doing

things’ (interview 2, line 34), overall there appears to be a positive impact for

Suzy. She explains that her career has been improved by experiencing a wide range of practice and it seems that this may have given her more confidence in what methods actually work, therefore boosting her efficacy beliefs.

‘…….being in so many schools has also been really useful in terms of seeing all these different ways of working and different practice….good and bad…so yeah…..although it’s been stressful it’s really helped my career…really helped me.’ (Suzy, interview 2, lines 37-40)

So, in this case moving the goal posts has encouraged Suzy to learn new

and practices and used them to her advantage. Having a good understanding of effective teaching practice has enabled her to pursue her career as an Advanced Skills Teacher and to help colleagues to improve their pedagogy in the classroom. One factor that seemed to have a positive influence upon how teachers coped with moving schools is colleague relationships. Although Lottie found some aspects of moving schools challenging, she reported that good colleague relationships really made a difference to her. They acted like a buffer, counteracting the negative issues surrounding the move and helping Lottie to cope with the demands.

‘My first year was an absolute ball, a lot of bitching, a lot of laughing, erm it was very good fun. And I think that really really helped.

The fact you felt an affinity with your department?

Yeah, and I could be myself. It wasn’t just a chore coming to work…….. You’ve had a bad lesson, you wanna cry – have a cry! If you want to let off steam, have a chinwag. The conversations we have in (department) are ridiculous!’ (Lottie, lines 86-96)