Supporting teachers
Are you passionate about physics education? Would you like to develop a project beyond the curriculum or beyond your own classroom? Apply now for a Senior Teacher Fellowship.
Published: 1 February 2022
Do you have an inspiring physics education project that you would like to share with more people? Or perhaps you would like to support other teachers by sharing your physics teaching expertise and ideas?
Senior Teacher Fellowships offer funding to schools for a physics teacher’s timetable release and supports project costs so teachers can deliver initiatives that bring the wonder of physics to a wider audience or supports other teachers to develop their teaching practice.
“The Senior Teacher Fellowship has been excellent for my own CPD and has given me the time and opportunity to work closely with other schools in my local area.”
Emma Leonard, Senior Teacher Fellow 2020
Springbank Primary School
Read more about Emma’s project HERE
“Senior Teacher Fellowship are awarded to teachers who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to physics education and wish to develop their skills while remaining in the classroom,” explains Programme Officer Ruhena Uddin. “The programme is designed to help give teachers the capacity to deliver a physics project that is outside of their teaching commitments,” continues Ruhena. “Enabling teachers to pursue and progress their ideas can develop pedagogy and support extra-curricular activity, whilst also sharing their expertise beyond their school.”
Senior teacher fellowship projects should address the aims of the Trust and reach some of the Trust’s priority audiences. They should help inspire or enable young people to take physics further, or support physics teachers to develop their teaching.
“We would like student enrichment projects to be sustainable once the fellowship has ended,” adds Ruhena. “And we would like to be able to share the project idea, know-how and resources so that other teachers can consider implementing the initiative in their school or local area.”
Clare Loizos, primary science specialist at Broadlea School in the Isle of Wight, had an Ogden Senior Teacher Fellowship so she could take part in a research and development collaboration between University College London and King’s College London – Primary science capital: a whole school teaching approach.
“When I became a Senior Teacher Fellow in September 2019, I learnt about Science Capital in our primary classrooms and was given the opportunity to work with other STFs to share ideas and put this into practice. It was fantastic to get dedicated time to do this; we were able to share ideas and pedagogy, as well as really getting the time to evaluate our own practice.
The thing that really resonated with me throughout is the reminder of why are we doing what we are doing – are we doing it for the books, ourselves, our school, to tick boxes? Or are we really doing our jobs to change society and the understanding, engagement and aspiration of every individually child we teach? It reminded me that I don’t always consider the uniqueness of the individuals I teach, and provided me with the inspiration to try to ‘tweak’ every lesson slightly to ensure I am focusing on the children ALWAYS.
It sounds simple – and it is! The Science Capital project has hugely changed my mindset and I am seeing the impact in the classroom. I loved discussing this with other STFs, we could laugh at failed efforts and try to work together to find ideas and solutions that worked for all primary aged scientists!”
Claire Loizos