Developing an effective beginning teacher support system for modern schools

Abstract

In today’s context when the paradigm of education is shifting it is becoming apparent that there is a need for the new requirements for teacher education and novice teachers’ competence. It is becoming particularly important for teachers to be mobile, flexible, able to adapt to social changes, prepared for constant development and innovative challenges, capable of being achievement-oriented and demanding towards one’s own reflective, intellectual, ICT and communication competencies. This article provides an insight into novice teachers’ professional adaptation that takes place during their induction. Moreover, we highlight the main psychological and pedagogical difficulties that novice teachers face. Along with that we present the main forms of support for novice teachers. The main goal of this study is to provide novice teachers with necessary support facilitate their further professional development, promote their self-realization and professional ambitiousness. Our literature review showed that this issue has been in the center of attention of various scientific schools. Within this article we develop the following aspects: creating conditions for successful novice teachers’ adaptation, identifying novice teachers’ professional problems and developing the ways to prevent these problems in their future work, facilitating novice teachers’ engagement in all spheres of school life, supporting their development as creative and unique individuals, encouraging their professional thinking and preparedness for innovation and modernization. All in all our study demonstrated the importance of the issue and all aspects related to novice teachers’ adaptation in today’s schools.