Last week we ran an insightful and engaging webinar with Kate Stockings, if you missed it you can catch up here: ‘Making the most of Year 7: How to get our geographers off to the best possible start’ . Kate asked several questions throughout the webinar, and as the attendees contributed lots of inspiring answers, we wanted to share some of these responses to get fellow geography teachers thinking about the transition […]
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In this second blog about the GA Conference 2021 I want to share some of the key points discussed in my session on departmental leadership. Responding to a historic lack of CPD available on effective middle leadership I shared some thoughts, reflections and ‘lessons learnt’ from my first 5 years as a Head of Geography. […]
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As the Easter holidays arrived, so too did the annual Geographical Association Conference. This year it was fully virtual and, naturally, many of us were perhaps questioning how this would work: would it have the same community feel? Would there still be opportunities for networking? Would it have the same ‘buzz’? As I write this, […]
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With all the talk of a “catch-up curriculum”, what is my priority upon our return to in-person learning? Keeping great geography at the heart of my lessons. While I don’t want students to dismiss the past two months of learning as ‘irrelevant’, I also want to be mindful that some of the content covered simply […]
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This September, for the first time in many years, I found myself leading a department with non-specialist teachers delivering Year 7 geography. I know from speaking to others that this is a position that many geography departments find themselves in year after year and so I recognise how rare my experience has been if this […]
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As I wrote in a previous blog , being a form tutor is an element of my role that I’ve come to fully appreciate during lockdown. Weekly phonecalls to my Year 8 form have become a highlight of my week and have ensured that I have a stronger relationship than ever with the 30 members of 8.2. I’ve […]
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When schools shut on 20th March, teachers across the world were thrown into a whole new way of working. Whilst some schools have long used elements of online learning it was, on the whole, limited to the use of platforms to share homework tasks. And so, the learning curve began! What I want to focus […]
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As September approaches, many prospective and experienced teachers will be thinking about the new school year – thinking about how to ensure they enjoy the last of the holidays whilst getting organised and prepared for the year. With that in mind, I thought I’d share my top tips for anybody getting ready to start a […]
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First impressions from Geography teachers of the new Education Inspection Framework (EIF) published by Ofsted in May 2019 are overwhelmingly positive. Let’s start with the fact that the new framework puts the focus of inspection on the school curriculum and specifically what is being taught in the classroom i.e. subjects – and in our case, […]
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By Gemma Bott At last the final half term of the year has arrived. The time of year when you can get caught up with all of those jobs you’ve been putting off or just not had time to do. For secondary school teachers, exam classes have left, hopefully leaving extra PPA time in the […]
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