Science

Course Overview

The Science ITT programme seeks to develop secondary teachers allowing them to have strong subject knowledge and a deep understanding of the world through Biology, Chemistry and Physics, thereby allowing the teacher to confidently deliver a broad and balanced curriculum, promoting a love of learning and intellectual curiosity and increasing student knowledge and understanding of key scientific concepts.

Our curriculum provides teachers to learn evidence-based research to positively impact pedagogy to teach Science, provide up-to-date safety guideline, develop students critical thinking. We aim to practise a range of key required practicals allowing teachers to be able to deliver the ‘working scientifically’ sections of the curriculum.

The curriculum aims to provide teachers with the tools to motivate students, create a positive learning environment, identify scientific misconceptions, while incorporating key scientific literacy and mathematical concepts within Science.

As a result, it is intended that Science trainee teachers will be able to:

Develop their subject knowledge to a depth and breadth that enables them to teach their subject at KS3-KS4 with confidence and competence
Understand the pedagogy of their subject and be both deliberate and judicious in their choice of methods and approaches
Be able of the curriculum requirements for the age range they teach and have awareness of how content is chosen to be broad, balanced and deliberately sequenced
Understand how learning happens in their subject and be able to use a range of approaches to ensure that knowledge is more likely to be retained
Learn about the statutory assessment arrangements for Science and be able to guide and prepare students for both internal and external assessment
Anticipate and address common misconceptions within planning and lesson delivery
Develop students’ hinterland knowledge and intellectual curiosity
Use a wide range of subject terminology and be aware of strategies to help students use these terms for themselves
Provide learners with actionable, motivational and manageable subject specific feedback in order for them to make progress in their learning
Create classroom climates that are inclusive for all learners regardless of ability or background through an awareness of potential barriers to learning and how to overcome these
Learn how to activate hard thinking in their subject as a result of a deliberate approach to structuring, explaining, questioning, interacting and embedding knowledge

Useful Websites

Stem Learning

The Science Teacher

Primary Science Teaching Trust

IChemI

AQA

OCR

Pearson - Qualifications

Eduqas

Subject Association Details 

Chartered College of Teaching

Association for Science Education

Royal Society of Biology

Royal Society of Chemistry

Institute of Physics

Entry Requirements

Mandatory

English GCSE at grade 4/C or above (or equivalent)

Maths GCSE at grade 4/C or above (or equivalent)

A degree in a Science at class 2:2 or above (or overseas equivalent)

An unrelated degree + an A Level in a Science (grade C or above)

+ completion of a funded Subject Knowledge Enhancement course

Science Lead Subject Tutors

Zainab Nawaz

Zainab Nawaz - Biology

Zainab graduated with a first-class degree in Biological Sciences from Essex University in 2013 before completing her PGCE in Science.

After her training year she worked at Moulsham High School, where she also studied as a student! Zainab has been responsible for many roles through out her time at the school. She has been a lead for the ‘Outstanding teacher program’ and has led a whole-school role as ‘Teaching and Learning’ Ambassador for the school.

Zainab is extremely enthusiastic about Science and has mentored many trainees. She is looking forward to using her experience and passion of teaching and Learning to continue supporting trainees in their training year.

Cathy Priest

Cathy Priest - Chemistry

Cathy studied Natural Science at Cambridge University before training to be a secondary science teacher; she worked as an outstanding science teacher for 20 years in the UK and abroad, taking on leadership roles within departments; KS4 leader, head of Biology and head of Physics.

She has mentored many trainee science teachers and is passionate about helping them reach their potential and understand how science operates as a subject. During her teaching she completed a Masters in Educational Research looking at teacher job satisfaction and well being and had been a team leader for exam marking for the International Baccalaureate.

For the last 5 years she has worked for the Cambridge based, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, as the training lead, in the youth and schools' team where she develops and delivers teacher training on integrating science and religion in the school curriculum. This has given her the opportunity to work with 100's of different trainee teachers and 10's of different PGCE programmes.

Dan Andrews

Dan Andrews - Physics

Daniel graduated with a master's degree in Physics from The University of Southampton in 2018. From there, Daniel trained to be a teacher through MEITT at Chelmer Valley High School; The school that he had previously attended. While training, he was awarded 1 of 100 Institute of Physics Scholarships awarded across the country.

Since qualifying, Daniel has worked at Chelmer Valley High School and in 2022, He took a role as Assistant Head of Sixth Form. A year later, he moved on to roles as Head of KS3 Science and Head of EPQ.

He has also taken a keen interest in working with trainees. He has been mentoring trainees since 2021 and runs a core training session on the use of technology in the classroom. Daniel is the Assistant LST for Science focusing on the Physics curriculum from KS3 to KS5.

Mid Essex Initial Teacher Training