Abstract
The first year of teaching is an exciting time of growth, but it's not without challenge. This qualitative study investigates how the practice-based experiences of 26 beginning teachers (BTs) in Australasia influenced changes in their view of themselves as teachers during their first year, based on two interviews. Alongside lenses of identity development and resilience commonly used to interrogate this intense formative phase in teachers' careers, this study employs the concepts of vocational thresholds and liminal space to offer a productive lens to explore BT perceptions of their practice capability. BTs described how affirmations informed by their own noticing, and offered by others, were significant to their sense of becoming and being a teacher. The authors argue that such evidence can be identified as consequential and authoritative reassurance and that it fosters significant threshold crossings. This study offers a fresh insight into how BTs make sense of their evolving professional identity.