Science teacher at secondary - should it be a specialist?

[Hollyhedge]

Hi all,

DS shortly taking GCSEs. On for triple science. His mock grades seem to have come down in chem and physics but gone up in bio. My mum, who was a teacher, thinks they should have specialists for triple science GCSE. DS’ teacher this year is Bio grad. I am not blaming him (not going to get us v far with 8 weeks to go!), it may just be DS is struggling. Also, the school has to use the teachers they have and we have generally been v lucky

However, what are your thoughts on bio grad teaching Chemistry and Phyisics??

Thank you

That would be great. But given we don’t even track the success of the bursary programme and just keep chucking money at physics grads who leave, I don’t think the gov has a credible plan to solve the issue.

Yes schools are generally awful places to work

In my biological sciences degree many moons ago one third of my first year was spent purely on chemistry modules which also formed part of the chemistry undergraduate first year course. This was compulsory for our whole department. Chemistry A level was a requirement to be admitted to the course.

Not the same for physics though but the likelihood of a biological sciences graduate having A level physics is quite high.

(Hope this is the correct forum for science teaching).
Our department wants us to conduct a practical with Y9 students involving heating a beaker of water and measuring how long it takes to boil. I have a class of 30 and all the desks are separated in columns to allow 2 pupils to a desk. I can push desks together for groups of 4 but I am concerned about how to end the practical safely with 10 beakers of boiling hot water, glass and tripod. They have no other space to work except their desks so what should they be doing while they stand as the beakers are cooling? Any suggestions would be appreciated thank you

My dd in Y10 has a new physics teacher(degree in engineering) but she was educated overseas and has not done any kind of teaching conversion here as far as I can tell - simply hired straight in to teach top set science. She has a rather ineffective way of teaching (at least ineffective for British kids used to a different style) so it’s not all just “do you know your stuff” but also “are you used to teaching gcse”. I’m sure this teacher will turn out ok but I’d rather she had a few years teaching KS3 first but I appreciate the school is absolutely desperate.

I think I’d like dc to have a teacher with a B at Alevel. For gcse I don’t think you need a degree if you have a strong A level grade.

You need your own thread, really. Why don't you ask the teachers who have run this before? I'm surprised your class is so large they are run as practical sets usually.
If you think you're being asked to do something unsafe, speak to your department first and then your union rep.

I was a school governor until early 2022. The school simply couldn't get teachers with chemistry or physics degrees.

Have you read the thread. Schools don’t have the resources, capacity or flexibility to ‘train up’ teaching staff. Recruitment is dire and exceptionally difficult. I, for one, am extremely grateful for the overseas colleagues choosing to teach in the UK (although it is a brain drain for other countries) as there is no other way to recruit science teachers.

Physics and maths teachers are in insanely short supply. My DH is a first class physics and maths grad and applied for a teacher job about ten years ago having worked in the city for a bit but felt he needed to pay something back and looked at teacher jobs in under privileged schools where you could learn on the job. He later withdrew his application but they called him pretty much every month for about six years to ask him to reconsider 🙈

I am grateful that if our kids end up doing further maths and physics, he can help them out because I worry about the lack of specialised teachers.

And in private often they get the graduate qualification but no teacher experience.

This plea is sad and illustrates perfectly why you need well trained, experienced, specialist science staff with the skills of working with inexperienced youngsters in potentially hazardous situations in every school.
Each practical needs risk assessing based on the class and the room layout. You cant learn a one size fits all from a book. Lolabun really needs an experienced mentor in the lab to show her how to do this safely as I did when I started teaching many decades ago.
Unfortunately people like me with the skills and experience to help her are at retirement age and are leaving the profession in droves.
As the OP said lots of science, particularly in the lower years is being taught by non specialists.
People such as myself are seen as too expensive and when we go we are often replaced by inexperienced non specialists
It's turning science slowly into a non practical subject because of the safety concerns. Long term it is discouraging students from seeing the sciences and engineering as interesting hands on subjects.