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

Support in your area

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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

Practical support and skills development

Practical videos

Conical flask with calcium carbonate chips on mass balance

Practical videos | 14–16 years

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

The hand of a teacher in a lab coat gestures towards a Liebig condenser used for distillation

Practical videos | 16–18 years

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

Teaching science skills

Three cartoons: a female student thinking about concentration, a male student in a wheelchair reading Frankenstein and a female student wearing a headscarf and safety goggles heating a test tube on a bunsen burner. All are wearing school uniform.

Teaching science skills

Discover teaching strategies and classroom activities to help your learners develop essential scientific skills, from literacy to constructing hypotheses and risk assessment.

  • Behaviour management in the chemistry classroom

  • The challenges of managing behaviour in the chemistry lab

  • Get to know your students better to improve outcomes

  • Targeted strategies to support good classroom behaviour

  • Establish good learning behaviours in the science lab

  • Managing behaviour beyond the classroom

  • Set your students up for success

  • 4 ways to boost behaviour management

Developing subject and pedagogical content knowledge

Explore our professional development courses

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On-demand online

Self-guided teacher professional development courses

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Live online

Free, remotely-taught teacher professional development sessions

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How to build pedagogical content knowledge

By and

How research translates into classroom practice

  • Classroom questions: Reducing teacher talk, beating NQT exhaustion and boosting test performance

  • Classroom questions: finding a job and choosing a school

  • Classroom questions: making chemistry accessible to all and remote teaching

  • Classroom questions: cold calling, the back row and key concepts

  • Classroom questions: fears, units and chat

  • Classroom questions: advice for new teachers

Mental health and well-being

Lesson planning

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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

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Using cognitive science for more effective lesson planning

Take advantage of how the mind works and improve learning outcomes

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Are misconceptions on your RADAAR?

How to use the EEF’s RADAAR framework to help you better consider misconceptions when planning your lessons and curriculums

Providing effective feedback

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3 ways to provide effective feedback

Use these principles to ensure your feedback is timely and helps your students succeed

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A new approach to marking

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

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One simple way to provide quick and effective online feedback

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

Find support when you need it

More from the RSC

Upcoming events

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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

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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

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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