Five Effective Strategies for Empowering Non-Specialist Science Teachers

Non-specialist science teachers face unique challenges when delivering complex scientific concepts. Ensuring these teachers have the support they need is crucial for student success.

Drawing on our extensive experience working with schools and developing the Science Mastery subject excellence programme – a fully resourced and carefully sequenced curriculum for KS3 and KS4 – we have identified five effective strategies to empower non-specialist science teachers.

1. Linked and embedded CPD

Effective CPD is more than just attending one-off workshops; it should be an ongoing, well-planned process.

Each department using Science Mastery has a dedicated Mastery lead responsible for the programme's implementation as well as the team's CPD needs. These needs are identified at the beginning of the academic year through a quick survey, allowing teachers and leaders to self-assess their requirements. The Mastery Lead then works with the school to plan CPD sessions for the year.

Top Tips:

• As a department or with school leadership, identify priority areas for development.

• Use department long term plans to identify when CPD sessions will be most useful (for example, to cover subject knowledge gaps in advance of certain topics being taught).

2. Co-planning

Co-planning involves regular, protected time to collaborate on upcoming units. Teachers can identify key content, understand the sequencing of lessons, and anticipate common misconceptions. This helps non-specialist teachers situate units or lessons in the bigger picture, and understand why they are teaching topics in a certain order.

The unit preparation booklets in Science Mastery facilitate this process, giving detailed guidance on lesson scope, sequence and common misconceptions. They include labelled learning objectives so teachers know which are a stretch, and which are critical for students to master before moving on.

Specific training and coaching is also provided for Mastery leads to run effective co-planning sessions.

Top Tips:

• As a department or a small group, try co-planning an upcoming unit.

• Consider the following prompts:

• What are the most important outcomes in this unit? Where does it lead in the future?

• What should students know coming into this unit?

• What are students likely to find difficult? Why?

“Co-planning has been very successful and has led to better outcomes for students. The consistency and quality is far better, and the bigger picture is becoming much more apparent.”

- Melissa Thorp, Skegness Academy

3. Specialist input

Leveraging the expertise of specialist teachers can significantly enhance the quality of science education. Sharing lessons and resources from subject specialists helps reduce the workload for non-specialist teachers and ensures accurate content delivery. But they may need further support.

In Science Mastery, every lesson PowerPoint contains guidance for teachers, including suggested expositions written by experienced subject specialists, helping non-specialists identify critical content and use models or examples.

Top Tips:

• Encourage specialists or experienced teachers in your department to annotate shared resources with key points, questions, and potential misconceptions.

• Ensure that all shared materials include answers and explanations to build confidence among non-specialist teachers.

4. Practical skill development

Science education is unique in its emphasis on practical skills across biology, chemistry, and physics. Breaking these skills into manageable components helps teachers deliver effective practical lessons.

In Science Mastery, practical skills are broken down and explicitly taught. For example, drawing a graph is divided into components that include, identify the variables, choose a suitable scale, draw a line of best fit, etc. This helps non-specialists know where to start when teaching the composite skill.

The skills are mapped across the 5-year curriculum, so that each skill is encountered at least three times, and where possible across biology, chemistry and physics, so students meet them in different contexts. Where needed, some skills have a whole dedicated lesson (e.g. variables). There are also 25 Maths in Science lessons, planned to fit in when students need to use that particular mathematic skill, for example probability comes up before students do genetics.

Top Tips:

• Break practical skills into components.

• Map these over time so they are revisited and embedded where appropriate.

5. Explicit exam technique

Using resources to explicitly develop exam technique can support non-specialists to understand how knowledge and skills are assessed.

In Science Mastery, this is relevant for KS4 only: KS3 focuses on understanding and application to build a strong foundation for KS4. Each KS4 lesson has scaffolded worksheets with three sections, to get students used to the ramping of demand and AO1/2/3 exam style questions. There are also have exam technique worksheets, including questions that require students to apply mark schemes.

Top Tips:

• Give non-specialist teachers time and exposure to exam questions.

• Involve non-specialist teachers in moderation before teaching, so the common mistakes are fresh in their mind.

Conclusion

By planning CPD well, engaging in co-planning, leveraging specialists to develop resources, breaking down practical skills, and explicitly focusing on exam technique, schools can dramatically reduce the workload for non-specialist science teachers and empower them to deliver high-quality lessons that engage and develop students.

Explore the Science Mastery programme in our free programme preview and find out how it could support your non-specialist teachers.