Salters’ A Level Chemistry Teachers’ Conference 2026

The fans were on full speed, the ice-cold water was lined up and teachers across the country were logging onto Zoom to attend the second annual Salters’ A Level Chemistry Teachers’ Conference.

At the end of June, on one of the hottest days of the year, we were due to hold our now annual Teachers’ Conference at Salters’ Hall. However, with extreme weather warnings in place across most of the UK and ‘do not travel’ advice issued, we made the difficult decision two days before the event to move our conference online. With all delegates, speakers and guests informed, the team worked behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition of the day’s programme to an online format.

We were delighted with the turnout of enthusiastic educators, eager to engage with this year’s theme: Context and Misconceptions. After a welcome from the Salters’ Institute Chair, Dame Mary Archer DBE, our first guest speaker of the day Dr Gareth Bates, from Anglia Ruskin University, spoke about the curriculum and misconceptions. This talk prompted some interesting questions and thoughts from our delegates on common misconceptions in chemistry both in the classroom and beyond.

Keeping on the theme of misconceptions, Zoe Thorn and Simon Colebrooke, both from Long Road Sixth Form College, gave engaging 5-minute flash presentations covering organic chemistry and molecular reaction dynamics, respectively. Delegates were then provided with curriculum development updates from Andy Brunning and Andy Wright of OCR before hearing from the new Head of Education at the Salters’ Institute, Alistair Moore, who continued the discussion on curriculum development and the work currently taking place at the Salters’ Institute.

After lunch delegates were treated to two talks on context in the curriculum, firstly from Emma Lumb of the RSC, who spoke about the importance of context in the teaching of chemistry; and then Professor Jeremy Frey from the University of Southampton, who discussed AI and computation in chemistry learning. As the Salters’ A Level chemistry curriculum is focussed on context-led learning, delegates were able to identify with the themes covered through their own teaching experience.

Remaining on the topic of AI, our first afternoon flash presentation was from Geoff Mitchell, from London Education Online School, who spoke about his experience of using AI in the classroom and how his students incorporate this tool into their learning. This was followed by a presentation on the context of scale in chemistry teaching delivered by Zoe and Simon. Lastly, Matt Endean from CLEAPSS gave a talk on the issues of heat and chemical stores; a very timely end to our programme given the need to alter the event due to the extreme heat.

Throughout the conference the online chat was buzzing with questions and comments about the thought-provoking talks and presentations and discussions between delegates allowed the conversations to continue. Although the day was not as originally planned, engagement and participation from the audience was high throughout. Feedback received was positive and those in attendance were appreciative that we were able to adapt to the online format so that the conference could still go ahead despite the weather.

We are thankful to OCR for their continued support and collaboration and to all our speakers for their adaptability to ensure that the event was able to proceed. Finaly, we are grateful to all our delegates for attending and we look forward to welcoming you to next year’s conference, which will (hopefully) once again be held in person at Salters’ Hall.