Continuing professional development for teachers

9 February 2009

A £30m initiative will ensure that UK science teachers enjoy even more continuing professional development opportunities.

In 2008 the Wellcome Trust joined forces with the UK Government and leading UK businesses to establish Project Enthuse, a £30 million initiative to enable science teaching staff to benefit from continuing professional development courses at the National Science Learning Centre in York.

With science and technology widely seen as crucial to the UK's economic future, science education is of enormous importance. High-quality education is fundamentally dependent on teachers, and it is essential that teaching staff have access to new scientific knowledge and teaching approaches. Launched in November 2005, the National Science Learning Centre aims to provide innovative professional development for science teachers and technicians - inspiring teachers to deliver inspiring lessons.

To promote the uptake of courses at the Centre, the Wellcome Trust teamed up with the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) and a range of UK businesses - BP, BAE Systems, GlaxoSmithKline, Rolls-Royce, AstraZeneca, AstraZeneca Science Teaching Trust, General Electric Foundation, Vodafone and Vodafone Group Foundation - to establish Project Enthuse.

The initiative will provide generous bursaries covering not only fees and travel for individual teachers but also the cost to schools of providing teaching cover and extra funds to help teachers share what they learn with colleagues. As a result, every school in the country will be able to send their science teachers on cutting-edge courses.

The Centre has been involved in two further important developments this year. It successfully bid for an £18m government contract to operate the network of regional Science Learning Centres, on behalf of the DCSF, and also received a £4.4m award from the Gatsby Charitable Foundation to establish a National STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) Centre.

Since October 2006, John Holman, Director of the National Science Learning Centre, has also been the National STEM Director, charged with developing a coordinated strategy to support STEM teaching. The Gatsby award will further strengthen links between the two areas. The National STEM Centre will contain the most extensive collection of STEM resources ever housed together - an ideal complement to the extensive range of courses on offer at the adjacent National Science Learning Centre.

Image: A practical demonstration at the launch of Project Enthuse.