Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Do we really need more physics teachers?

The government has today announced a drive to get more physics and maths graduates into teaching. It’s a good idea, given the struggle that many headteachers report in recruiting teachers with those backgrounds. The package includes £15,000 for students to help with their university costs in return for them teaching for three years post-graduation; fast-track retraining for professionals already working in medicine and engineering; and one-to-one support for those who have already trained as teachers and are considering returning to the job.

The reason it is becoming even more important to encourage more numerate people to become teachers is that by 2030, the science-based industries are expected to employ more than 7 million people in the UK. 5.4 million already work in engineering. This is a ‘global race’ policy, designed to help young people compete with those from overseas for those high-skilled science and tech jobs.

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But how much of a difference will it make? There’s an interesting report just out by the Education Datalab that uses information about pupils’ grades from the National Pupil Database to work out whether certain things we assume about education are proven by the stats. One such question is whether physics specialists actually improve attainment in physics at school. From a sample of 1128 secondary schools, the report found that just 10 per cent of teaching time at Key Stage Four was with a teacher whose degree was in physics or engineering. It also found that as many as 40 per cent of schools are teaching their KS4 curriculum without a teacher with a physics degree on the teaching team. It found that schools with physics specialists had slightly higher entry to GCSE physics, though it wasn’t clear whether this was because the teacher was encouraging greater take-up, or because they’d applied to work at the school in the first place because of higher take-up.

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