Early career exit from teaching has reached epidemic proportions and appears intractable. Previous attempts to find solutions are yet to make much of an inroad. The aim of the research was to discover what nine beginning teachers required to remain in the classroom, by adopting a phenomenological approach. The authors identified participants' common experiences through semi-structured interviews and unprompted written narratives. Data were examined for trustworthiness by reference to the literature. Key words from the narratives were synonyms, or broadly synonymous with, "optimism," "arrested development" or "disillusionment." The process of leaving involved "entry," characterised by optimism; "early experiences," characterised by arrested development; "pre-exit," characterised by disillusionment; and "exit."