The deep economic, social, technological and cultural changes in Europe represent a real challenge for teacher education. The teacher's role is becoming more complex and demanding, while the expectations of society are rising. Teachers are expected not only to enable optimal development of increasingly heterogeneous groups of pupils, but also to mitigate the effects of social inequality. All this requires qualitative changes in pre‐service and in‐service teacher education. In this regard, the transition from school/university to professional life — the induction period and early career years — requires special attention. In this phase, a fruitful synthesis of theory and practice can occur if novices are systematically introduced and supported by good mentoring in the transition from study to school life and culture, but a ‘practice shock’ is also possible during which many positive effects of pre‐service education are lost. Our aim is to identify some principles and optimal solutions that would foster teacher's professional development in this important phase of their career.