What New Teachers Should Know About Professionalism: It’s about more than your shoes.

Most beginning teachers are very concerned about what they should wear on their first day at their school placement. Do they need a tie? Are these shoes (imagine a comfy formal shoe with echoes of trainer) ok? Do tattoos need to be covered, and piercings removed? Why is this one of their primary concerns? Because they want to make a good impression and appear professional and, in their mind, professionalism is most often associated with good timekeeping, attendance and adherence to dress code. They want to look the part so they can act the part.

Professionalism and professional behaviours are woven throughout the Teacher Standards.  In Part 1, professionalism focuses on approaches taken to teaching and learning, while in Part 2 the focus is on personal and professional conduct. How a teacher dresses, and their attendance and punctuality, are therefore just three elements of a much bigger tapestry of dispositions and behaviours beginning teachers are expected to demonstrate.  Our aim during the ITT year is for beginning teachers to consider professionalism to encompass a way of being and need to engage with continual professional growth, as much as a set of expectations around their personal presentation, communication and behaviours to which they must adhere. 

For many beginning teachers, this more expansive notion of professionalism is often beyond their current frame of reference.  Consequently, I was interested to see how two of our newly minted ECTs answered this same question about professionalism when they dropped into a session with our beginning teachers to pass on the wisdom they gained through their own experience of the PGCE.  Since their visit, the response they gave to this question has kept replaying in my mind. I think it deserves a wider audience. I do hope they will forgive me for my paraphrase, interpretation and exemplification of their responses.

What does it mean to be a professional as a teacher?

The balance of rights and responsibilities

Central to the ECTs’ notion of professionalism was striking the correct balance between a teacher’s rights and responsibilities.  The ECTs recognised that, by choosing to become a teacher, they have also chosen to assume a number of different responsibilities; they have acquired responsibilities to their pupils, their colleagues, their schools and the wider school-community.  They expressed that this sometimes means their own personal rights are superseded by these responsibilities.  For example, in the case of safeguarding, they recognised the importance of overcoming their own discomfort and distress to meet their statutory and ethical obligations to keep young people safe.  In their classroom practice, they could see the importance of being ready for teaching every lesson on their timetable, and so managing the planning and preparation necessary for this with diligence and commitment.  Similarly, they recognised their responsibilities to behave in a way that upholds ‘public trust in the profession and maintain high standards of ethics and behaviour, within and outside school’, for example by complying with the guidelines around political impartiality, and in having due regard for the law in their personal life.  Critically, they were clear that being a professional is owning that choice you have made to take on these additional responsibilities.  You are now part of a community, and you must commit to working for the good of that community. 

Adding value

The second aspect of professionalism these ECTs highlighted was connected to this idea of being in community.  One of the ECTs said they try to approach each interaction their have in their day with pupils, colleagues, parents and carers with the question ‘How can I add value in this situation?’  This notion of adding value was intrinsic to their understanding of what it means to be a professional.  The idea that you are in that workplace to make a contribution, to work for the good of those with whom you interact, and to promote progress, advancement and growth. This might look like treating all those you meet with courtesy, dignity and respect; being thankful for the work of teaching and support colleagues who make your work possible or providing pupils with a fresh start in a previously fractured relationship.  Alternatively it might look like restocking the paper in the photocopier to help out the stressed colleague who flies in after you to do their copying in a panic at the last minute.    It might even look like giving a group of pupils 10 minutes of your lunchtime to run through an extra exam question, or spending time reworking a scheme of learning to ensure it is more specifically tailored to the needs of pupils in your class.  However it manifests, this notion of adding value seemed to encapsulate so many of the professional values and dispositions that truly impactful teachers embody, and was certainly an interesting way for an ECT to define how their had come to view professionalism in context. 

It’s about more than wearing the right shoes 

I have been struck this week by the nuance that laid behind the conceptualisation these ECTs had of their own professionalism.  They have grasped that it is far more than wearing the right shoes.  As we begin a new academic year, I hope that our new crop of beginning teachers will grow to understand this too.  Professionalism in teaching is about adopting a way of being and a set of dispositions that sit alongside your pedagogical and curricular competencies.  It just so happens that developing this set of values also changes your behaviour.  When this happens, adapting your clothes to the context of your school is simply an outward sign of an inner process of change you have undergone in your identity.  You are now a teacher. And consequently, you are now a professional.