Enhancing action in supporting international pre-service science teachers via self-study

Teacher training bursaries have historically proven to be an effective recruitment strategy in teacher education. Since 2022, international applicants studying the teacher education courses with a specialism in secondary physics have been eligible for the teacher training bursary, thus the ethnic diversity of preservice science teachers (PSSTs) has increased significantly (DfE, 2024). Many international PSSTs have experience teaching in their home countries, but are unfamiliar with the English Education system (Campbell, 2025).

These challenges prompted us, as a group of science teacher educators (STEs), to reflexively examine how our practice as white, Westernised teacher educators can value the experiences of international PSSTs.

Examining our practice requires a reflexive inward turn, centring ourselves within the research. Thus, in this project, we adopt a collaborative inter-institutional self-study methodology to examine our practice critically. We use autobiographies, meeting transcripts, reflective journals, and critical incidents as data entries to uncover how our pedagogic practice evolves. Further, we discuss whether we effectively cater to the needs of international PSSTs. Results highlight our unconscious biases, such as unfounded assumptions that international PSSTs would be unfamiliar with practical work. Moreover, our research documents barriers such as communication, which, if left unchallenged, can hinder efforts to support PSSTs in refining their teaching expertise in the English school setting. We conclude this paper by providing examples of how we adapt our teaching practice and respond to calls for stronger support for international teachers (Millar, 2018) and efforts to decolonise teaching in initial teacher education (Le Grange, 2023).