Teacher quality is not often defined but can be understood through the way that policies and expectations for teaching quality are talked about and talked into being. How do early career teachers (ECTs) navigate high expectations of becoming quality teachers, especially when there are several discourses of quality, some prominent and others less so? Data from interviews with 13 Australian ECTs five years after their graduation from selective quality teacher preparation degrees were analysed to identify how ECTs discerned, deliberated and dedicated themselves to quality teaching in their diverse contexts. ECTs drew from concepts of effectiveness and responsibility when they focused on their students, yet their emphasis on relational priorities and the importance of reflexive dialogue points to a practice-based approach. While dominant discourses of teacher quality do not highlight relational or collective approaches, these ECTs showed how professional standards, effectiveness and responsibilisation approaches were recontextualised. Importantly, the systemic conditions of time to talk, and opportunities for attending to relationships, as well as the skills of reflexivity underpin this alternative approach.