Support for early career and student teachers

Whether you’re taking your first steps in training or launching your career as a qualified teacher, get the support you need to thrive.

Discover free curriculum-linked resources, teaching tips and inspiration to use in your classroom, or explore our professional development courses and find support in your area. From practical skills to subject knowledge, from lesson planning to behaviour management – we’re here for you.

Getting started

Classroom questions: advice for new teachers
Experts answer questions about planning, pandemics and practicals from trainee, newly qualified and early career teachers
Classroom questions: finding a job and choosing a school
Experts answer questions about choosing the right school from trainee, newly qualified and early career teachers
The 10 things you need to know as a trainee teacher
How to nail the most important things from the off

Support in your area

Regional support

Our Regions team support all teachers of chemistry and science across the UK and Ireland. Find out more about our work to help teachers provide their students with an excellent chemistry education

Campaigning for the future of practical science teaching

We're calling on the UK government to provide more support for teachers whose training has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on practical skills development. Want to add your voice? We can help you reach out to your MP.

Find out more

Practical support and skills development

Practical videos

Practical videos | 14–16 students

Videos of core practical experiments for remote learning, flipped learning or revision.

Practical videos | 16–18 students

Videos of key practical techniques and apparatus for revision, flipped learning or remote teaching.

Teaching after lockdown

Post-lockdown teaching support

Ideas and resources for teachers heading back to the classroom during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic

Tips and ideas for effective practicals

Managing the classroom and student behaviour

A cartoon of singing chemistry teachers and happy students

4 ways to boost behaviour management

Tiny students climbing ladders among lab equipment as directed by a teacher to claim chemistry prizes

Set your students up for success

Behaviour management in the chemistry classroom

Managing behaviour beyond the classroom

A teacher demonstrates safety goggles to a group of puzzled looking students

Targeted strategies to support good classroom behaviour

An exasperated teacher watches students collect lab equipment incorrectly

Establish good learning behaviours in the science lab

A teacher with students showing their answers on whiteboards

Get to know your students better to improve outcomes

4 ways to boost behaviour management
Set your students up for success
Behaviour management in the chemistry classroom
Managing behaviour beyond the classroom
Targeted strategies to support good classroom behaviour
Establish good learning behaviours in the science lab
Get to know your students better to improve outcomes

How to win at classroom behaviour
Avoid sliding standards and encourage students to play nicely
No words necessary: the classroom hand signals you need to know
15 essential gestures to control students’ behaviour and save your voice when teaching from the front
Classroom questions: cold calling, the back row and key concepts
Experts answer questions about key concepts, socially distanced teaching and assessing understanding from trainee, newly qualified and early career teachers

Developing subject and pedagogical content knowledge

Explore our professional development courses

On-demand online
Self-guided teacher professional development courses
Live online
Free, remotely-taught teacher professional development sessions

How to build pedagogical content knowledge

2020-07-27T09:26:00+01:00By David Read, Niki Kaiser

How research translates into classroom practice

How to teach...

Discover more ideas for teaching key topics

Common questions and challenges

Mental health and wellbeing

How to succeed in your teacher training – and enjoy it
How to not only survive the initial teacher training year, but to thrive
How can an educational psychologist help with teacher mental health?
Educational psychologist Katy Goymour gives her advice on stress management
Asking for help
Teachers report being stressed and not receiving enough guidance about their mental health. Is compulsory counselling the solution?

Lesson planning

How to plan a brilliant lesson as a trainee teacher

Wondering how to write a lesson plan? Use this template to create logical lessons and improve learning outcomes

Using cognitive science for more effective lesson planning

Take advantage of how the mind works and improve learning outcomes

Saving time and reducing your workload

A new approach to marking

Reduce your marking time and increase student’s engagement with your feedback

One simple way to provide quick and effective online feedback

Use objective-based marking to save time and engage students with online feedback

Upcoming events

Events

Our events for teachers range from small, informal resources sessions, careers sessions and curriculum contextualisation workshops to larger events such as teacher conferences. We also run competitions for students to put their chemistry skills into action

Our courses

Teacher PD

Expand your skills, knowledge, expertise and confidence. Take a comprehensive approach to professional development with our well-rounded programme of training and learning that aims to support every aspect of your Chemistry teaching

Practicals, lesson plans and more

Resources

Browse our resources designed to support your teaching of chemistry to primary, secondary and higher education students. Including our collections on analytical and practical chemistry