Trainee teachers need scholarship

For many years the main route into secondary chemistry teaching in England has been the postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE), where graduates in chemistry, or cognate subjects, undertake a one year, full-time, course, which prepares them to teach secondary science with a specialism in chemistry. And there are good reasons for this approach.

The curriculum and its assessment, policy priorities, institutional structures, educational technology and teaching resources are all in constant flux in English schools. Teachers and university tutors have specific roles in helping student-teachers to cope with the inevitable pressures such changes bring.

The teachers working alongside the student-teachers in the schools provide guidance on such matters as the specific schemes of work, assessment specifications and available apparatus in the partner schools. They are expert practitioners with local knowledge of how to do the job well with their pupils, in their classroom and in their school.

So why change?