Wow, what a weekend! The variety of sessions over the two days of the Geographical Association Annual Conference allowed for an invaluable mix of teaching and learning ideas for the classroom, subject knowledge updates, and engagement with the wider discipline of geography. I took away far more from this conference than I’ll be able to […]
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As another long term draws to an end and the Easter holidays loom on the horizon, for many Geography teachers the Geographical Association Annual Conference is an exciting date in the diary! Despite having thrown myself into the wider geography community in the first few years of my career, this year will be my first […]
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For the first few years of my teaching career, I would set revision lessons without much expectation. If you were going to do a test, you should at least give some chance of success by providing the lesson before for ‘revision’. I would often provide a list of suggested activities that students could pick from: […]
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As we enter the final stages of covering the A Level Geography content, I seem to be giving the same feedback to our cohort with each completed essay they hand in. Thus, some creativity in approach is required and I’ve started to experiment with different methods of structuring and scaffolding A Level essay writing. In […]
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Reindeer aren’t just good at flying through the sky on Christmas Eve – they’re also incredibly well adapted to their extreme Arctic environment. Plus, scroll down to enter our reindeer quiz competition. Reindeer coats have two layers: a thick, woolly undercoat and a top layer of hollow hairs which keep the reindeer well insulated. The hollow […]
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There is often a debate surrounding the age at which children should be taught topics like sex education. Teachers and parents are often divided in opinion – are they just too young? So why are there not debates over when geography students should be exposed to images and video material of major conflicts, global atrocities, […]
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As we begin the second year of new specifications, it feels as though the attention of many geography departments is once again focused on Key Stage 3, reflecting upon the change required here in order to best prepare our students for what we now know lies ahead. One of the biggest challenges I have found […]
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One of the ways that I like to stretch my most able students is by offering them the opportunity to enter nationwide geography competitions. The benefits of this are threefold: students get the chance to challenge themselves and expand their geographical knowledge; the profile of the geography department is raised; and older students gain valuable […]
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During the spring term we decided as a department to develop a Scheme of Work that would prepare our Year 9 students more effectively for the demands of the new GCSE course. We delivered the lessons around the time of options choices to give the students a realistic idea of what GCSE geography would be […]
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“Fieldwork makes geography come to life, puts everything into context in glorious 3D and helps students really grasp how geography literally shapes the world around us.” Kate Humble, BBC Springwatch presenter (taken from Parkinson, 2009) It doesn’t take long to persuade a geography teacher of the benefits of fieldwork and even less time to encourage […]
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