Synergies and Collisions: Character Strengths as a Language to Compose and Comprehend Wellbeing while Preparing to Become a Teacher

This study examines how pre-service teachers use character strengths language to understand and support their wellbeing during professional experience. The project responds to the persistent challenge of teacher stress and early burnout by reframing placement as a context for developing wellbeing capability rather than merely demonstrating competency. Guided by strengths-based pedagogy, the study investigates how strengths are combined, moderated, and occasionally brought into tension as pre-service teachers navigate the demands of learning to teach. A qualitative design was employed, drawing on reflective narratives from 1,066 pre-service teachers across undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Thematic analysis explored how participants articulated strengths synergies, collisions, and the developing capacity to orchestrate strengths in context. Findings show that strengths rarely operate in isolation. Pre-service teachers reported dynamic interactions in which strengths amplified one another, conflicted under pressure, or required deliberate recalibration. These patterns revealed emerging wellbeing literacy, characterised by the ability to comprehend and compose wellbeing through intentional strengths use. The study offers original insight into strengths as pedagogical language and as a means of cultivating sustainable professional practice. It demonstrates the value of embedding strengths-based reflection across professional experience and highlights the importance of supporting teachers to recognise both resources and vulnerabilities within their strengths profiles.