A hell of an induction...

Reframing how we induct new colleagues

Photo by Seema Miah on Unsplash

Induction into a new workplace can be hellish.

It might look like this: a folder of policies to read, a whistle-stop tour of the building, a few quick introductions, and some whole-school messages. You spend the first half term just figuring out how the place works.

We can’t afford this. Students don’t get a grace period while their teacher settles in. The routines and expectations in lessons matter on day one, so a teacher’s induction can’t be a survival exercise.

But, it’s not just about the impact on students. The purpose of induction isn’t just to get students learning quickly. It’s also about what Josh Goodrich and Jon Gilbert call professional equity: creating the conditions where every teacher can succeed by design, not by chance. Without this, we’re subjecting new staff to unnecessary discovery learning when the knowledge is there to be taught.

So, what’s the difference between a hellish induction… and a hell of an induction? That is, one that helps teachers find their feet quickly, align with the school’s culture, and not stick out like a sore thumb with their students.

Well, I think we can learn something from a recent paper on framing…

Framing

Walsh and Schunn (2025) describe a frame as the way we define “what kind of situation this is” and therefore what to do in it. Frames are constructed from two things:

1. A schema: a mental category we might ascribe to a situation. For example, ‘lesson start’, ‘whole-class questioning’, or ‘support with behaviour’. Schemas help us categorise situations and recognise familiar patterns quickly. They trigger the knowledge we use to guide our decisions and actions in that situation. Importantly, not all teachers evoke the same schema in the same situations. What might be a clear instance of “checking for understanding” for one teacher might call for “extending students’ responses” to another.

2. A principle: the underlying goal or rule-of-thumb that explains how to handle that schema well. For example, ‘lesson starts should maximise readiness to learn’, or ‘whole-class questioning should check every student’s thinking’. There may be multiple principles at play with any given schema for any situation. One principle may stand out in one situation and sit back in another, depending on the teacher, their experiences, beliefs, etc.

Together, schema + principle = frame.

Importantly, framing is about constructing different frames in the moment and principles can become more or less prominent depending on the situation. The frame a teacher uses in a given situation will affect their goals, standard actions and the reasons underpinning their decisions.

Let’s make it more concrete:

You’ve hired a teacher who’s about to start their very first lesson in your school. What’s their frame for their first lesson(s) with their class(es)?

‘Lesson start = get everyone understanding the key routines quickly, which means getting them learning quickly.’ This frame drives actions like lining students up, greeting them, and settling them fast into a clear task.

Or

‘Lesson 1 is about relationship-building, not necessarily routine setting.’ That principle leads to very different actions: greeting each student at greater length, opening with informal conversation, etc.

That’s why framing matters: it leads to different priorities, different decisions, and different actions.

Handily, these frames are unlikely to be fixed, meaning we can support teachers to re-frame. Induction may be so much more useful if reframing is our ultimate concern.

Let’s see how it’s done.

Inducting staff: a process of reframing

Expect different frames

When you induct a new teacher, it’s easy to forget they come with a set of frames from previous roles. Some of the frames they arrive with will align with your school’s culture, but many won’t.

Take these schemas and compare the principles, considering how the actions will be different depending on which frame is adopted:

Example 1: Student talk

Schema: Eliciting student thinking through class discussion.

Principle in their old school: Learning emerges through organic, free-flowing contributions; collaboration matters more than structure.

Principle in the new school: Students need structured participation so discussion is inclusive and no one voice dominates.

Example 2: Feedback

Schema: Feeding back on students’ work.

Principle in their old school: The quantity and detail of written feedback signals respect, builds relationships, and likely correlates with learning.

Principle in the new school: Feedback should be actionable, efficient, and place more effort on the student as receiver, not on the teacher as writer.

These aren’t small differences: they shape the daily feel of lessons, the workload of teachers, and the learning of students.

In addition to the substance of frames themselves, teachers might not actually evoke a frame at the time you’d expect them to. For example, they may not even evoke a ‘behaviour management’ schema for students chatting during independent work because that type of low-level disruption (as your school might call it) was permitted in their previous school.

Unless you explicitly induct teachers into your school’s frames and when to use them, new staff will naturally fall back on their old ones. Plus, teachers’ work is often siloed, so it might take weeks before anyone realises they are framing something important differently from the school norm. By that point it can be awkward to address, or worse, misread as resistance, laziness, or a lack of knowledge or skill.

So, what can we do about it?

Know your key frames

First, leaders need to be crystal clear on which frames are most important for consistency. Ask yourself: what do we want all teachers to frame in the same way? When do we want them to evoke certain frames? Of course, you may have hired teachers or leaders because they have different frames that are likely to be advantageous for the school’s trajectory. Even so, there will still be routine frames they need inducting into.

Typical early candidates regarding lessons include -

• Entry and starts to lessons (e.g., smooth beginnings, high expectations)

• Behaviour management (e.g., how corrections are made, how praise is given)

• Elements of instruction (e.g., explicit instruction, independent practice)

And you’ll probably be thinking of a few others. Depending on the time you have for induction, you might emphasise 3 key frames.

The key point here is that if these frames remain tacit, you’re asking staff to pick them up by osmosis. This is both risky, time consuming and potentially stressful. So, start by articulating these frames yourself to bring them into the open.

But, articulating these in a document won’t cut it…

What do framing and re-framing entail?

Model frames explicitly

Show what the frame looks like in action. For example, with lesson starts, demonstrate -

• When: Every lesson start.

• Goal: Students ready to learn within one minute.

• Standard actions: Line-up, greet at door, starter task on board.

• Decision drivers: Prioritise speed and focus over a relaxed start to maximise lesson time. Learning can drive motivation.

Crucially, re-framing is not about just showing how something looks but also the reasoning that drives it.

Watch this video of a teacher educator training brand new teachers (a different scenario from induction in some respects but with some similarities). It’s powerful how she gets them to be the students lining up and experiencing the greeting, etc.

However, I think it could be more powerful. Yes, the teacher educator asks the trainees to think about the difference between this lesson start and another and afterwards they reflect on what ‘resonates’ with them, but she’s not explicit about the goals of entry routines or the reasons for her actions. The teachers appear to have to infer this or just take the entry routine on face value: ‘I should just mimic it’. That’s likely to work fine when everything goes to plan. But, if it doesn’t, this scant framing may prevent them from adapting appropriately.

So, when modelling key situations, ensure you make the reasoning visible too. What are the goals? What principles drive the decisions? This also helps teachers connect the specific routine to the bigger pedagogical picture of how things work in your school.

Provide practice

Deliberately practising and articulating your school’s key frames supports teachers to adopt them early. It’s going to be very difficult for these teachers to re-frame common situations, so practise with feedback will be crucial. You’ll also find that the staff who train them will learn a lot from the experience of breaking down and articulating and your school’s approach!

Jon Gilbert, Professional Learning and Improvement Director at The Two Counties Trust, describes how he has led on induction in the past. Notice how his approach demonstrates the three key steps:

• Know your frames

• Model frames explicitly

• Practise framing

Jon tells me, “I made sure significant portions of new starter induction focused purely on the first 15-minutes of a lesson. A ‘legacy’ member of staff live modelled this passage of a lesson, including routines, language and techniques; from lining students up to responding to their answers to a starter activity.

Through questions and dialogue, the purpose and success criteria of each part of this frame was identified and codified. Each part in turn was then rehearsed with new starters receiving feedback from legacy staff.

So intent was I (and others) on the importance of this approach that this same induction activity was repeated three times for new starters - a day before summer, a day before all legacy staff returned at the end of summer and then all staff, new and legacy, would do this rehearsal upon returning from summer break.

But the support did not stop there. We knew it was tough for teachers new to our school to adopt our frames (not language I used at the time of course), so we scheduled for a legacy member of staff to support new staff at the start and ends of lessons and by working at the back of their room each lesson for their first week. By the second week, they were just there to support starts and ends. It was the norm for legacy staff to give new starters quick frequent feedback so old frames faded fast! By the third week, new starters were prioritised for lesson drop ins to further support them.

When we had visitors to school, I would often set them a challenge when we went to lessons: to identify who the new staff were. Thanks to a rigorous induction and subsequent support, they could rarely tell!”

Summing up why this matters

Induction is not about policing or conformity for its own sake. It’s about ensuring that students experience coherence, and teachers don’t waste energy trying to intuit tacit frames that could be made explicit.

Frames are the bridge between individual expertise and collective culture. If we keep them at the forefront of induction, we can build a shared culture that feels predictable to students and helps teachers see how their expertise transfers and flourishes in your context. Once the key frames are secure, teachers are free to innovate to solve other problems.

A school’s frames for key situations add up to its overall culture. Another benefit of making them explicit is that they can be communicated early in the hiring process, attracting teachers who want to adopt and contribute to that culture.

So, this year, don’t settle for a hellish induction. Reframe it and give your staff a hell of an induction instead!

HUGE thanks to Jon Gilbert for his ongoing wisdom on this and other topics related to teacher professional development!

References

Walsh, M. E., & Schunn, C. D. (2025). Reconceptualizing framing theory for adaptive teaching expertise: the role of strategic and expansive framing. Educational Psychologist, 1-18.