This piece is the third and final part of an academic literature review commissioned by the CYRA Service research assistance company, which specialises in the childhood and youth field.

Fostering Teacher Resilience

Having identified some of the main reasons why significant numbers of teachers leave the profession for good, often within the first few years of qualifying, the obvious next step is to find a means of addressing these issues and halting the exodus.

Resilience in the context of teaching has engendered a large amount of interest in recent years. It is by now widely acknowledged, in academic literature and studies, (see, for example, (Beltman, Mansfield, & Harris, 2016; Mansfield, Beltman, & Price, 2014; McCallum & Price, 2010; Parker, Martin, Colmar, & Liem, 2012), that the key to reducing teacher attrition is in providing the necessary support and environment in schools to assist new teachers in developing resilience to the stresses and pressures of everyday situations in the classroom. There seems to be no single agreement, however, on exactly what form that support should take, nor on the best ways to integrate chosen methods into the school environment.

Methods and methodology

Perhaps the first logical move towards giving relevant support to new teachers should come even before graduation, to ‘provide relevant, rigorous and responsive pre-service preparation for the profession’, (Johnson et al., 2012). Positive, realistic experiences, information and support given to pre-service teachers may offset some of the seemingly unexpected issues, (Ewing, 2005), such as workload, class sizes, parents and administration tasks (Burke et al., 2013), faced by new teachers who may have a somewhat rose-tinted view of the profession before experiencing full involvement with it.

A programme of mentoring by seasoned teachers of their novice colleagues would seem to be an obvious approach, but there are differing opinions on the best methods of conducting such a programme. Gordon & Lowrey (2016), for example, advocate the construction of a relatively formal ‘mentoring web’ to provide a safety net of support for new teachers. The addition of a more informal and social approach to this can also be of value and has been shown to not only make new teachers feel affectively connected to their peers, but also to the school itself (Struyve et al., 2016). Yet another mentoring option is Reciprocal Mentoring, in which two equally matched but differently skilled teachers work together in support of each other. This differs radically from traditional one-way mentoring in that the flow of support travels in both directions (Paris, 2013). Paris asserts that this method works well for pre-service and new teachers, as it avoids the tendency for them to be viewed in the usual negative light of having lack of experience and teaching skills, putting great value on previous experience outside the profession, and giving a head start in imbuing a sense of self-worth and confidence. A further extension of this is the Quality Teaching Rounds system, formulated in Australia (Gore &

Bowe, 2015), which uses ‘Professional Learning Community’ groups of up to eight teachers who support each other by discussion, individual coding and each teaching observed lessons over a period of time, giving one another feedback, support and building personal and professional relationships between them.

A recurring theme in studies of teacher resilience is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the very significant role that relationships play, more traditionally inside the school environment with colleagues and students (Mansfield, Beltman, Broadley, & Weatherby-Fell., 2016), but also in a wider context involving support from friends and family (Beltman et al., 2016; Papatraianou & Le Cornu, 2014). Spilt, Koomen, & Thijs, (2011) note that there has been much investigation for many years into the importance of student/teacher relationships for good child development, with particular emphasis on the emotional wellbeing of the child, but that only relatively recently have studies been undertaken into the way that these relationships influence the personal and professional lives of teachers and their emotional wellbeing, (Salter-Jones, 2012).

One comprehensive study (Mansfield et al., op.cit.), puts forward a review-based, collated and detailed overview of factors contributing to fostering early-career resilience, which somewhat simplifies the perceived necessary requirements. The study identifies that teacher resilience can be thought of as a combination of three basic elements – a capacity, a process and an outcome, which can be further sub-divided into more specific factors. The first is defined as the capacity of teachers to make use of personal and environmental resources to work through difficult tasks or situations. The process is the synergy between a teacher’s professional and personal ecologies, and their own individual characteristics as they employ these selected approaches, resulting in the outcome of well-rounded and resilient teachers who experience ‘professional engagement and growth, commitment, enthusiasm, satisfaction and wellbeing’ (ibid. p. 8).

This is obviously very much the desired goal if teacher attrition is to be effectively addressed. Teachers who feel valued, fulfilled and effective will be much less likely to want to leave the profession.

Beltman, S., Mansfield, C. F., & Harris, A. (2016). Quietly sharing the load? The role of school psychologists in enabling teacher resilience. School Psychology International, 37(2), 172–188. Retrieved from http://spi.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/37/2/172

Burke, P. F., Schuck, S., Aubusson, P., Buchanan, J., Louviere, J. J., & Prescott, A. (2013). Why do early career teachers choose to remain in the profession? The use of best-worst scaling to quantify key factors. International Journal of Educational Research, 62, 259–268.

Ewing, R., & Manuel, J., (2005). Retaining quality early career teachers in the profession: New teacher narratives.

Gordon, E., & Lowrey, K. A. (2016). The mentoring web – Coming together to make a difference. Improving Schools, Published . http://doi.org/10.1177/1365480216650310

Gore, J. M., & Bowe, J. M. (2015). Interrupting attrition? Re-shaping the transition from preservice to inservice teaching through Quality Teaching Rounds. International Journal of Educational Research, 73, 77–88.

Johnson, Down, Cornu, L., Peters, Sulivan, Pearce, & Hunter. (2012). A Framework of Conditions Supporting Early Career Teacher ( ECT ) Resilience, 2012.

Mansfield, C., Beltman, S., & Price, A. (2014). “I”m coming back again!’ The resilience process of early career teachers. Teachers and Teaching, 20(5), 547–567. http://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2014.937958

Mansfield, C. F., Beltman, S., Broadley, T., & Weatherby-Fell, N. (2016). Building resilience in teacher education: An evidenced informed framework. Teaching and Teacher Education. Elsevier Ltd.

McCallum, F., & Price, D. (2010). Well teachers , well students. Journal of Student Wellbeing, 4(1), 19–34.

Papatraianou, L. H., & Le Cornu, R. (2014). Problematising the role of personal and professional relationships in early career teacher resilience. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 7. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2014v39n1.7

Paris, L. F. (2013). Reciprocal mentoring: Can it help prevent attrition for beginning teachers? Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 38(6), 9. http://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2013v38n6.5

Parker, P. D., Martin, A. J., Colmar, S., & Liem, G. A. (2012). Teachers’ workplace well-being: Exploring a process model of goal orientation, coping behavior, engagement, and burnout. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(4), 503–513.

Salter-Jones, E. (2012). Promoting the emotional well-being of teaching staff in secondary schools. Educational and Child Psychology, 29(4), 18–31.

Spilt, J. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., & Thijs, J. T. (2011). Teacher Wellbeing: The Importance of Teacher-Student Relationships. Educational Psychology Review, 23(4), 457–477. http://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-011-9170-y

Struyve, C., Daly, A., Vandecandelaere, M., Meredith, C., Hannes, K., & De Fraine, B. (2016). More than a mentor. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 1(3), 198–218. http://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-01-2016-0002