At first, it seems that the assistant head in charge of timetabling must have made a mistake. Could it be a typo? Has somebody else’s timetable somehow wound up in your pigeon hole?

Unfortunately not. This year, you are indeed being asked to teach three whole periods of geography - or food tech or art or philosophy and ethics - as a non-specialist in the subject.

As someone who began their career as a teacher of sociology, this scenario has happened to me more often than most. Over the years, I have picked up psychology, briefly flirted with anthropology, acquired some geography and even added a dash of religious studies to my teaching repertoire.

This comes with the job of being a sociology teacher. Specialising in a subject that is usually only taught at key stages 4 and 5 means there’s a good chance that you will find yourself teaching at least one other subject to fill out your timetable.

If you aren’t used to teaching outside of your subject area, however, and have to do so for the first time in September, how should you prepare? Speaking as a veteran of teaching outside my subject, here are my tips.

1. Find a range of resources

This might sound obvious, but going on the hunt for resources early will make your job far easier later on. Usually, the department you are working in will have a hoard saved on its shared area and in its stock cupboard. However ancient and badly designed these resources might be, at least they are a start.

Of course, there will always be those resources that are useless out of context (I once inherited a store of random words and pictures, which were no doubt excellent cues for the author, but impenetrable to anyone else). For this reason, you shouldn’t expect to rely on department resources alone. Supplement your stockpile by visiting online repositories (many sites offer resources to download for free).

You should also make it a priority to go through your exam board’s scheme of work. While some of these documents may compete with War and Peace for length, you can still pull out the key topic areas to inform your search for resources.

Professional bodies - such as the Royal Geographical Society or the British Psychological Society - and subject associations may also be useful here.

Your goal should be to get at least half a term’s worth of good resources, suitably tweaked to suit your needs, under your belt in advance. Do this and you’ll find yourself in an excellent position to start teaching in September.

2. Identify what you can keep

You might be teaching a different subject, but it doesn’t mean you have to completely change your teaching style.

For example, Lindsey Jones, a key stage 3 English lead who has been asked to teach history next year, says she is planning to use the “same structures for her lessons” and to rely on “the same pedagogy and method of delivery as I do in English”. So if you are a teacher who likes to teach from the front, there’s no reason to discard this approach just because you’re changing subject.

At the same time, it’s best to avoid having a totally fixed mindset, as you need to give yourself some space to adapt to the new material you’ll be covering. “Don’t be too hard on yourself because it can take time to bed in,” says Sumita Gupta, a seasoned head of social sciences who has had to teach a new subject several times.

“It’s a fluid process where you are also learning how to make [the subject] more accessible to students,” she adds.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for help

Most importantly, Gupta says, never hesitate to ask for help. Nobody will think less of you for asking for support in teaching a new subject. Speak to colleagues or reach further afield to groups on Facebook and Twitter, where people will gladly swap tips and resources. While these groups can be intimidating if you are new to interacting with them, they are usually remarkably supportive and can be a huge help.

The recent periods of remote learning have also provided further help in the form of multimedia lesson programmes, such those developed by Oak National Academy and BBC Bitesize. Although we’re no longer in lockdown, such programmes could prove to be a saviour for teachers teaching outside of their specialisms, and there is no shame at all in making the most of them.

4. See it as a chance to rediscover your love of learning

Finally, try to approach teaching outside your specialism as an opportunity for professional development. The reason why many of us got into teaching in the first place is a love of knowledge. In my experience, steeping yourself in an unfamiliar subject can often enhance your understanding of your primary specialism.

For instance, looking at my subject through the lens of teaching psychology has deepened my understanding of several issues that we cover in sociology, such as crime. This has enhanced my teaching of those issues.

It is easy to get stuck in a subject knowledge “silo”, but learning to teach another subject can push you out of your comfort zone and demonstrate how interrelated many areas of the curriculum are.

In addition, this helps to bust the myth that too many students believe - that everything in school is separated into convenient chunks, and so they couldn’t possibly apply the same theories that they have learned about in media studies, for example, to the work they are doing now in citizenship.

This simply isn’t true, and teachers have a role to play here in modelling how to apply knowledge across the curriculum effectively.

If we can demonstrate to students that not only are we not intimidated about learning something new, but that we can also approach this learning with enthusiasm, what a positive message about lifelong learning that sends to each and every student we teach - whether in our subject specialism or outside of it.

Cathy Brownjohn is a teacher of humanities at a school in Hertfordshire

This article originally appeared in the 20 August 2021 issue under the headline “Survival tips for teaching outside your subject”