ABSTRACT
Having taught for a while you will reach the stage where you begin to feel you would like to take on more responsibility (and the salary enhancements which usually go with it). If science is your specialism, the next step could be to apply for a post of responsibility in science. There are a number of titles given to teachers who take on such responsibility, each reflecting a slightly different focus to the role.
The science specialist teacher: someone who has some subject expertise in an aspect of science and who may be asked to teach science to several classes in the school. There may be a number of teachers in the school with this expertise.
The science curriculum leader: someone who usually has a subject specialism in science and who can provide advice on the subject, guide colleagues on how to teach it and perhaps teaches science to several classes. The addition here is involvement in working with and supporting other colleagues who are not experts in science.
The science curriculum manager: someone with good administrative skills and perhaps (though not always) some subject expertise, who takes responsibility for the structure, form and direction of the science programme throughout the school. Sometimes, someone who is an excellent manager and administrator takes on the administrative side of the school's science work and works with the curriculum specialist.
The science curriculum co-ordinator: someone who is likely to have science expertise and can co-ordinate the teaching and learning of science throughout the school, manage the programme and support and guide colleagues. In reality, the science co-ordinator's role tends to be an amalgam of the other three roles. It is also in line with the definition of a co-ordinator as given in the Ofsted Handbook for the Inspection of Schools (1993):
… a teacher responsible for leading and co-ordinating the teaching and learning within a subject, curricular area or key stage …
(p. 29)