There is a strong body of evidence that science was not taught consistently to primary-aged children across England and that their memories of science prior to 1989 centre around the "nature table." While secondary initial teacher education (ITE) before the National Curriculum had a strong subject focus, this was rarely the case for primary trainees. They tended to meet elements of science hidden in more generic ideas. While there were some very good resources around to support science teaching, many ITE courses did not acknowledge science as a specialist subject within the primary curriculum. The introduction of the National Curriculum in 1989 placed science firmly in the primary curriculum, particularly as a result of its new status as a core subject. Pre-service and in-service training provision responded rapidly to the need for change. However, one of the greatest challenges was not so much to find an opportunity to teach primary science but to find specialist primary science teachers to teach it. Often this resulted in the employment of secondary science teachers who, whilst having secure subject knowledge and understanding, found their practitioner knowledge too firmly rooted in the post-11 curriculum, with little or no experience of teaching science in the primary phase. In this article, the authors consider how ITE in primary science has adapted to external constraints.