continuity of positive development of teachers’professional commitment and, thus,
their effectiveness. The key influences provide a departure point for teachers,
school/departmental leaders and policy makers to understand and acknowledge
teachers’needs and to identify appropriate support for these needs. To provide
favourable conditions for teachers’professional learning and development within
the same and across different phases of their professional lives means understanding
and taking into account the different positive and negative scenarios which affect
teachers’identities, and which, therefore, affect their sense of commitment and
effectiveness.
The professional and personal experiences of the majority of VITAE teachers
can be seen as being reflected in their journeys of self-adjustment and professional
growth within these professional life phase scenarios. In all their journeys the
teachers were confronted by professional and personal pressures, tensions, and
challenges to their values, beliefs and practices. However, what shone through for
most was their capacity to learn to build upon favourable influences and positive
opportunities in their work and life contexts, overcome the emotional tensions of
the scenarios in the environments which they experienced, and maintain the sense
of vocation—an“inner motivation to serve”(Hansen 1995 :6)—which had initially
attracted them into teaching. They were able to continue to learn and develop their
professional assets whilst at the same time meet the challenges of the changing
environments in which they worked. Whilst this was the case for the majority
(74%), it was not so for a sizable minority (26%). Put another way, approximately 1
in 4 students were receiving teaching from teachers who were not as effective as
they might be.
Support by head teachers and other colleagues which focuses upon creating and
maintaining a learning climate and professional learning opportunities for teachers
which relate to the core needs to sustain commitment and, through this, effective-
ness, is a key mediating factor in building and supporting the classroom and school
improvement. The kinds of support and professional relationship which teachers
experience, for them, as with their students, have important positive or significant
negative effects upon their motivation, commitment and effectiveness trajectories in
each phase of their professional lives. As the VITAE research shows, teachers do
not necessarily become more effective with age and experience. Because the sce-
narios which they experience vary in kind and complexity during their working
lives, teachers need to be resilient if their pupils are to receive their best teaching.
Just as the best teaching‘personalises’students’learning agendas, so the best
professional learning and structures and cultures will differentiate between the
learning agendas of teachers in order to sustain their resilience, commitment and
effectiveness which are fundamental to classroom and school effectiveness and
improvement.
3 Variations in the Conditions for Teachers’Professional... 51