Get chartered - it's easier than you think!

If you’re looking for a way to demonstrate the time and effort that has gone into your professional role as a physics teacher, we’d like to encourage you to consider applying to become a Chartered Physicist.

This isn’t a qualification, but a recognition of the experience and expertise that you have built up in the classroom, a professional setting just as valuable as an industrial laboratory or a university campus. For teachers, it can be seen as a physics-specific equivalent to SLE accreditation, available only to IOP members.

As a badge of professional standing, being chartered emphasises your ongoing commitment as a physicist.

It encourages you to reflect on your career to date and to consider how your physics knowledge and skills are integral to your role as a teacher, as well as areas of responsibility for students and colleagues. As a badge of professional standing, being chartered also emphasises your ongoing commitment as a physicist.

As part of the process, applicants are supported to summarise their professional practice and their plans for continuing professional development. You can get education-specific advice by emailing [email protected] for details. The recently streamlined process is explained here; qualified teachers can now demonstrate MPhys equivalence by summarising a change in their approaches to classroom physics from early in their career.

The IOP Education team can help with examples and advice over the summer, and it would be great to see more teachers recognised as professional physicists. As well as prompting you to reflect on how you teach physics (and future physicists), what better way to demonstrate the value of your subject knowledge and skills?

Ian Horsewell, CPhys CSciTeach

Regional Education Manager, Midlands