Rethinking Classroom Readiness: Beyond the Surface of Teaching

By Rachele Newman | February 2025

Introduction

In a time when education is grappling with what has been described as a “polycrisis”—from teacher shortages and post-COVID recovery to increasing state control over teacher education—there’s a pressing need to ask: What does it really mean to be classroom-ready?

This question sits at the heart of Rachele Newman’s study, which challenges the dominant, policy-driven narrative of teacher preparation in England. Her work invites us to move beyond a narrow, technicist view of readiness and instead embrace a richer, more human-centred understanding of what it means to begin a teaching career.

The Problem with Technicist Thinking

Current policy frameworks, such as the ITT Core Content Framework and Early Career Framework (ITTECF) tend to define readiness in terms of technical competence—classroom management, procedural fluency, and behavioural control. This model, rooted in a “craft” ideology popularised by Michael Gove in 2010, reduces teaching to a set of observable skills that can be mastered through apprenticeship.

But Newman argues that this view is not only reductive—it’s potentially harmful. It sidelines the deeper dimensions of teaching: professional judgement, identity, autonomy, and the ability to respond to complex, context-specific challenges.

Two conceptions of Readiness: Beginner Teachers and Mentors

Newman’s small-scale case study, involving nine secondary PGCE students and five school-based mentors, reveals a striking disconnect. While beginner teachers associate readiness with confidence, adaptability, and a sense of professional identity, mentors often focus on surface-level competence and system compliance.

This divergence reflects a broader tension between two models of professionalism. The student teachers lean toward democratic professionalism, marked by agency and ownership. Mentors, perhaps shaped by policy pressures, lean toward managerial professionalism, where effectiveness is measured by adherence to systems.

Context Matters: Readiness Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All

One mentor’s comment—“A teacher can be classroom-ready in one school and then not classroom-ready in another”—captures a key insight: readiness is deeply contextual. It depends not just on skills, but on understanding the tacit knowledge and cultural norms of a specific school environment.

This complexity helps explain why beginner teachers often feel disoriented when moving between placements. It also underscores the need for a more nuanced, flexible approach to teacher development.

Building Real Readiness: Three Key Shifts

Newman proposes three practical ways to support beginner teachers in developing true classroom readiness:

1. Encourage pedagogic freedom and collaboration
2. Allow mistakes to build confidence
3. Develop professional judgement

A Call for Broader Professionalism

Newman’s work is a timely reminder that classroom readiness is not just about ticking boxes. It’s about nurturing teachers who are confident, reflective, and professionally grounded. As the sector continues to evolve, we must resist the urge to oversimplify teaching and instead invest in the professional knowledge and autonomy of our teachers as agents of their own professional development.

To read the full article see What does it really mean to be classroom-ready? Professional agency, autonomy and confidence in beginner teachers : My College