Creative ideas from the Secondary Geography Quality Mark

Creative ideas from the Secondary Geography Quality Mark Dr Rebecca Kitchen CPD, Curriculum and Marketing Manager Geographical Association

What is a Geography Quality Mark? The Geography Quality Marks are prestigious awards which recognise and promote quality and progress in geography leadership, curriculum development and learning and teaching in schools.

Why the Quality Mark matters The Quality Mark is a powerful process which aims to engage, stimulate and support teachers to improve standards in geographical learning across their school. “A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. ” Df. E (2013) The national curriculum in England. London Df. E

Why should you apply for the Quality Mark? • Highly valued by school leaders nationally and internationally • Powerful self-evaluation: ‘What is geography like in our school? ’, ‘How do we know? ’ and ‘What can we do to improve standards? ’ • Raises the profile of geography across the whole school community. • Impactful and rigorous CPD which meets the 2016 standard for teachers’ professional development. • Proven track record with over 1000 successful Geography Quality Mark schools forming an international network supported by the GA.

The process The Quality Mark is a collaborative and professional process that will enable you to assess whether you have reached a recognised standard in the teaching and learning of geography and to identify areas where this can be improved. There are four main steps to go through as a department: Registration and reflection Auditing and action planning using the GA framework Developing action points and gathering evidence Submit application

Skype and Face. Time • Connect with geography experts • Interview people • Link with other classrooms around the world • Provide clues to where you are in the world • Think about question writing

Human graphs • Works best with line graphs • Pupils plot themselves on the graph • Question students – what can they say about where they are on the graph and why they are there?

Key term padlocks • Match up the definition (key) with the correct key term (padlock) • Design your own geography escape room!

Food glorious food! • Helpful for pupils to think about physical processes e. g. waterfall formation • Create an outline map of the world using sweets. Useful for locating cities • Chocolate bar geology

Dollar Street • Gives pupils the opportunity to explore different parts of the world. • What questions would you like to ask the families? • Which parts of the world usually grow their food and which parts buy it from shops?

Sustainable Development Goals • Pupils could create knowledge cubes http: //www. ibgeograp hypods. org/sustainabl e-development-goals 2030. html • World’s largest lesson video • Encourage pupils to open a food waste or sustainable cafe

Clouds • Provides an opportunity for an eye-catching display • Measuring cloud cover with toilet rolls • Extend by linking to different types of weather and atmospheric systems

Ice Man • Ages 10+ reading book written by PGQM and SGQM moderator • Full scheme of work at http: //www. geogra phypods. com/theice-man. html# • Opportunity to combine literacy and geography

Emoji mapping • Excellent fieldwork activity for exploring a place • Could use the whole range of emojis • Combine with other activities e. g. where would you sleep for the night if you were homeless?

Earthquake investigations • Use mobile phones to investigate how seismic waves travel • Which 5 apps would be most useful in an earthquake? • Realtime earthquake monitoring

A CPD programme for primary and secondary teachers of geography and science Funded by the Df. E Teaching and Leadership Innovation Fund (TLIF)

Opinion washing line • Useful for encouraging pupils to engage with controversial issues • Teacher takes on different roles e. g. devil’s advocate, take part