Building Resilience in Future Teachers: Why It Matters

Teaching is a meaningful profession, but it also brings many challenges. Future teachers need more than subject knowledge. They also need skills that help them respond to stress, adapt to change, build positive relationships and manage difficult classroom situations. This is why teacher resilience is an important part of teacher education.

Resilience does not mean coping with everything alone. It is a dynamic process through which teachers draw on personal strengths, professional skills and support from others to respond to challenges and continue developing in their role.

The PHOENIX project builds on the BRiTE framework, which stands for Building Resilience in Teacher Education. The framework supports the development of teacher resilience through five key areas: Building Resilience, Relationships, Wellbeing, Motivation and Emotions.

These areas help future teachers understand what resilience means in the teaching profession, build supportive relationships, recognise their own needs, maintain a sense of purpose and respond to challenging classroom situations with greater awareness and confidence. Importantly, BRiTE also shows that resilience is not only an individual responsibility. It is shaped by relationships, mentoring, school culture and the wider teaching environment.

How PHOENIX Supports Resilience?

PHOENIX aims to strengthen the resilience skills of pre-service teachers through a Resilience Handbook, a six-module MOOC and immersive VR workshops. These resources will combine practical guidance, reflection tools, realistic classroom scenarios and decision-making activities to help future teachers prepare for real classroom challenges and build more sustainable teaching careers.

Created 16.9.2026 | Updated 16.9.2026