Professional standards far teachers are widely used in teacher training and continuing pro­fessional development in England. As a whole, the standards represent a set of demands each teacher might be expected to achieve in order to demonstrate competence and progress in his or her career. This paper begins with an outline of the use of the professional stan­dards for teaching as they are currently applied in England. It then goes on to consider the applicability of professional standards for newly qualified and more experienced teachers in the Caribbean.

This paper discusses initial findings on teacher identity as perceived and discussed by six participants: three overseas trained teachers (OTTs), one secondary headteacher, one local authority director, and one senior policy officer in the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) who is a qualitative researcher at a prestigious London university. Through systematic reflection, each individual explores the potential gains which accrue to OTTs as part of their teaching experiences in England in order to make sense of their “new” emerging teacher identities.