Experienced and contented physics teachers - how?

We hear a lot about the recruitment crisis in physics teaching, but what about retention – keeping experienced practitioners in the classroom, focused on pedagogy in their specialism? Experience guides and steadies ships, governments, arctic adventures and physics departments, and it’s hard to remember a time when it was needed more! The Ogden Trust is one of the go-to organisations for physics and is committed to supporting experienced teachers of physics. As well as providing access to cutting-edge physics experiences that help to revitalise physics teachers and bring the latest physics into the classroom, the Ogden Trust will be building a network of community champions supporting experienced teachers to share their practice and expertise and will also be offering funding for physics teacher development. This support for experienced teachers builds on the Trust’s previous senior teacher fellowship programme, and in this session, we will share a selection of the fellowship resources, discuss the lessons learnt from this programme, and look at the new opportunities on the horizon. We will share findings of what motivates experienced staff to stay in the physics classroom, reflect on different school settings and how to get the best from our physics teaching teams.