This week, in the middle of a PGCE interview, the applicant asked: “Is there any ongoing support for your trainee teachers after they leave your programme?”
I smiled, partly because it is such an important question, and partly because I was thinking about what had happened in the last week alone.
In the space of just a few days, I had supported an alumnus with a Head of Department application; offered advice to a newly appointed Head of Department trying to find their feet; responded to two requests for references for alumni seeking new posts; and worked with a former student on how to articulate their ongoing professional development in conversation with their line manager.
None of this activity is formerly captured in our course materials or planned into a timetable. And yet, all of it felt entirely central to what we do as teacher educators on our programme.
ITT as the beginning, not the destination
It is tempting to think of ITT as a bounded phase; a year of intensive training that leads to a qualification, followed by ECT induction and, eventually, established practice. But the relationships formed during training do not simply dissolve at the end of the course. Instead, they evolve. Conversations shift from how to get started with lesson planning and behaviour strategies to curricular decision making, career progression and subject leadership. Former trainees do not return as students seeking instruction; they come back as early career or experienced colleagues engaging in professional collaborative dialogue. And when this happens, I am no longer their ITT tutor. My role has shifted from instructor to critical friend, from assessor to sounding board.
The quiet work of staying connected to build a professional community
The examples from this week are small, almost mundane in isolation. Advice on an application here; a reference there; a conversation about stepping into leadership; a discussion about professional development. Yet collectively I hope they point to something more significant: that this ongoing relationship and the continuity of our PGCE community matters to these teachers. This is a key part of my role that I really value. It is a privilege to continue having glimpses into the ongoing career progression and professional growth of these teachers.
However, this is about more than alumni maintaining a one-to-one relationship with their tutor. Instead, through their ongoing contact with their tutor, they are able to access a wider network, a community of professional practice that extends across schools, roles, and career stages.
Within this community, beginning teachers are supported through a sense of belonging to something that formal structures alone often struggle to provide. They can ask questions without fear of judgement, share successes and frustrations, and draw on the experience of others who have navigated similar paths.
Over time, this community begins to regenerate itself. Those who were once supported become the ones offering support. Beginning teachers become mentors or welcome new beginning teachers into departments; knowledge and practices circulate and evolve.
I see this is a key outcome for the effectiveness of our teacher education programme.
Experience, retention, and the educational ecosystem
There is a clear connection here to wider discussions about the educational ecosystem and the role of experience within it. As explored here, it is vital we retain experienced colleagues in the profession, beginning teachers do not develop in isolation. Their growth is shaped by the presence, expertise, and stability of those around them.
Sustained relationships between ITT tutors and alumni form part of that ecosystem. They create bridges between different stages of a teacher’s career and help to maintain a flow of knowledge, values, and practices across those stages. In doing so, they can contribute (quietly but significantly) to teacher retention. When early career teachers feel supported, connected, and part of a wider professional story, they are more likely to remain and to thrive.
Recent work on teacher development (Crooks, London & Snelson, 2025; Knight, 2024) similarly emphasises the importance of relational, networked models of professional learning. Development is not simply an accumulation of individual competencies; it is shaped by participation in communities, by access to experienced practitioners, and by opportunities to engage in sustained professional dialogue. The ongoing relationship between ITT tutors and their cohorts is one way in which these conditions are enacted in practice.
A community, not a course
So, when I smiled at the applicant’s question during the interview, it was not because the question was unexpected, rather it was because the answer is central to how I understand my own identity as a teacher educator and the longer-term purposes of our PGCE programme.
Yes, there is support beyond the programme. But more than that, there is a community that extends beyond the boundaries of ITT; a network of relationships that continues to grow and adapt; a shared commitment to the profession that does not end at graduation.
For me, this is what matters most.
It is not simply about delivering an ITT course. It is about creating the conditions in which beginning teachers move from being students to becoming colleagues who remain connected, who support one another, and who, in time, take up the work of mentoring the next generation of beginning teachers.
References
Crooks, V., London, L., & Snelson, H. (2025). “An incentive for innovation”: the impact of being a subject-specific secondary ITE mentor within an HEI partnership on the professional learning of teacher mentors. Professional Development in Education, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2025.2580324
Knight, R., 2024. Teacher educators as knowledge brokers: reframing knowledge co-construction with school partners. Professional development in Education, 1–16. doi:10.1080/19415257.2024.2360461.
Becoming a History Teacher 