Recruitment, retention & results in
A-level geography
Steve Brace
Head of Education and Outdoor Learning
Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)
s.brace@rgs.org
The Royal Geographical
Society (with IBG)
• We exist to “advance geographical
science” in universities and schools, and
with the public and policy makers.
• 15,000 Fellows and members
Who inspired me?
What inspires young people?
• No one forgets a good geography teacher
• Mr (John) Benson
– Lincoln Christ Hospital School, Lincoln
• No one forgets a good field trip
– Whitby, Snowdonia
A couple of weeks ago
Geographical inspiration
during registration (Y6!)
Kerry?
Matthew?
Maylan?
Osjan?
Vinson Massif - Antarctica
Port au Prince – Haiti
Aconcagua – Argentina
Mexico City – Mexico
The state of geography
• c200,000 entries at GCSE
• c30,000 entries at A2
• c5,000 students start an undergraduate course
But:
<20% in poorer schools, c100 academies (50%) and c140 maintained
schools don’t offer GCSE or A Level geography
Unequal access: why some people don’t do geography
Paul Weeden & David Lambert. Teaching Geography Summer 2010
What is geography?
Geography
Environments
People
Places
Geography in schools
• Geography – as a school subject – provides a
way of helping young people in schools to learn
about, and reflect on, aspects of their world.
This engagement with the world means that
geography is constantly changing as society
changes.”
Teaching geography 11 – 18
David Lambert & John Morgan 2010
At A Level
What can A Level achieve?
• Deeper subject knowledge
• Higher level understanding and skills (inc
technology)
• Independent learning (and curiosity about
the world)
• Pathways into further study and
employability
But …
A chasm has developed between those
who teach at school and those who teach in
universities.
Schools and universities: the great divide Andrew Goudie Geography 1993
University and non-university geography appear to
inhabit different worlds
Geography as the world discipline: connecting popular and academic geographical imaginations Alastair Bonnett 2002
Area
However: the benefits of
linking schools and HE
• New research in the classroom
can be invaluable. It can be really
powerful for a teacher to be able
to say, ‘here is new research
from the University of X and it
shows ‘this’ about that
geographical issue or location’.
• While your research process is
fundamental, the real need is for
information about ‘what’ you
found and ‘why’ it is important,
rather than ‘how’ you did it.
Communicating Geographical Research
Beyond the Academy RGS-IBG 2010
How this helps
• Combining up-to-date knowledge, understanding & skills
• Relevance – not just ‘topicality’.
• Lecturers were concerned with the dominance of ‘issues’
over ‘processes’ in schools e.g. ‘In school there is a
fixation on issues with insufficient theory and processresponse underpinning.’ This included the uncritical
teaching of geographical models.
Joined-up geography’: connecting school-level and university level geographies. Jennifer Hills & Mark Jones Geography 2010
e.g. Christaller Model
• Christaller could use his theory in
practice with the rise of Adolf
Hitler’s Third Reich in Germany and
its conquered territories, including a
reconfiguration of the geography of
Germany’s eastern conquests such
as Czechoslovakia and Poland.
Christaller was in charge of
planning for occupied Poland.
•
http://world-geography.org/people/137-walterchristaller.html
•
See also ‘economic take off’, Burgess etc
Keeping up-to-date – the
value of CPD
•
How many of us (or our colleagues) have?
– Attended a lecture about new research
– Read a journal article about new research in geography
– Kept up to date with our university tutors (or former student’s) and
asked them for information or invited them to talk to 6th formers?
Our research is the internet, geofiles, Geography Review etc … it’s not
necessarily current.’ (1)
(Emphasis on) CPD, linked to ongoing academic research, in order to:
‘stimulate renewed interest in my main subject where I feel I am getting
stale. (2)
(1) & (2) Joined-up geography’: connecting school-level and university level geographies. Jennifer Hills &
Mark Jones Geography 2010
Ask the (academic) Expert?
www.geographyinthenews.rgs.org
Further study & careers
through geography
• Further study at university www.rgs.org/studygeography
“But Sir there’s no point doing geography as I don’t want to be
a geography teacher – (like you!)”
• Online Ambassadors: George-Risk Management, SarahPollution Analysis, Caroline-GIS Retail Planning. Introducing
real geographical topics by real people
Some challenges
• Topicality - a changing world a changing geography
• Purpose – understanding or action?
• The case for geography: with pupils, parents and the public …
1. Topicality
1957 or 2007 Which is relevant?
Image of Lynmouth floods removed for
copyright reasons
Image of Tewkesbury during the 2007
summer floods removed for copyright
reasons
2. Geography’s purpose?
•
Is it to understand – is it to preach?
• ‘The replacement of knowledge with morality as the
central focus of the curriculum … global problems are
not presented as issues to be interrogated for truth,
knowledge and meaning, with a view to developing ideas
about the potential courses of social and political action.
Instead, the solution is to be found in the personal and
presented as a given: consume less, have fewer
children, take public transport, be less money-grabbing
(&) support charities.
Alex Standish The Corruption of the Curriculum 2009
3. The case for geography
• Geography illuminates the
past, explains the present
and prepares us for the
future. What could be more
important than that?
Michael Palin, President
RGS-IBG
Michael’s letter promoting
GCSE and A Levels:
www.rgs.org/schools
I would encourage your son
or daughter to choose a
GCSE or A Level in
geography. It meant a lot to
me and it could mean a lot to
them.
The wider public case
The RGS-IBG’s wider role is to encourage a spatially,
environmentally and socially aware citizenship that
understands, and cares about, the world; an informed
awareness of the nature and diversity of peoples, places
and environments, locally and globally; how and why
they are changing and linked; what challenges they
pose; and how our own lives affect the planet and its
resources
Futuring Geographers: The role of the subject organisations Rita Gardner & David Lambert
Geography 2006
A wider perspective: what
drives performance?
• Autonomy
• Mastery
• Purpose
– taking control of your work
– the desire to improve
– the direction of travel
• “The surprising truth about what motivates us”:
– http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
• Doing something with our subject (in our own
time)
Michael Barber Instruction
to Deliver (2007)
Further information/support
• RGS-IBG Membership www.rgs.org.joinus
– School Membership, Young Geographer (14-24),
Fellowship & Chartered Geographer (Teacher)
– www.geographyinthenews.rgs.org
– www.rgs.org/schools
– www.geographyteachingtoday.org.uk
• Events e.g. lectures, master classes & study
days, careers events
• S.brace@rgs.org