Placing Geography
A QCA perspective on 3 – 19 geography
Eleanor Rawling – QCA Adviser for Geography
March 2005
A geographical perspective is essential….
….for life in the 21st century
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Global environmental change / sustainable development
Cultural and ethnic diversity
Social and economic change impacting on lives
Population – immigration / emigration, refugees
Conflict over resources, geopolitics, imperialisms
Identity, community, nationality
Technological change and consequences
Lost in place and space…..?
Making the case for geographic education entitlement:
“our social, political and economic orientation completely
obscures where we are geographically.” we are “victims of
disorientation.”
Will Self – PsychoGeography
“People of all ages need to learn to negotiate with others in
and about places all their lives.”
Doreen Massey
Growing recognition at national level
•Subject Specialism - March 2003
•Geography Development Fund – 2003 onwards
•Secretary of State’s Geography Focus Group – autumn 2004
•Possibility of a National Strategy and a National Adviser for
geography
QCA monitoring report (2003 – 04) “the beginnings of a more
positive phase in school geography”
Connections being made “public concerns” and “relevance of
geography”
Good news in schools
•Geography popular with young people (despite falling
numbers)
•Major contributor to citizenship, ESD, local links
•Geography departments frequently innovate with ICT
•“the world around us” – is a motivating and well used
context for 3 – 7 year olds
•Quality of teaching, standards of achievement high 14 –
19 (eg GCSE 62.7% A* - C cf. national average 59.2%)
•Impressive support from subject associations/others
Problems communicating and building on this….
•Poor public image – especially in the media
•Low status (or near invisibility) in some primary schools
•Poor quality teaching in some KS1 – 3 classrooms
(Ofsted press release)
•Lack of subject expertise and CPD (KS1-3)
•Outdated “tired” curriculum frameworks
The image: Teachers
‘You teach ******* geography, probably
the most tedious subject in the history
of subjects, historically taught by the
most tedious ******* teachers. You’re
supposed to be boring. Live with it.’
(Kurt to Brian, the PE/geography teacher,
Teachers, 20 Aug 2003)
What can we do?
1. Address the immediate problems
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QCA – support and guidance via National Curriculum
in Action, Schemes of Work, Innovating with
Geography website etc….
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GA + RGS-IBG support and projects, such as GCSE
pilot support, GA journals/publications, RGS-IBG
Geography in the News, CPD conferences
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Subject community campaign to “change the image”
What can we do?
2. Lever some change into the existing structures /
system
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QCA – pilot GCSE, Assessment Project, White
Paper remit for 14 – 19 work, Key Stage 3 Review,
Innovating with Geography website
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GA and RGS-IBG – Geovisions and Valuing Places,
Progression study, Geography in the Community
GCSE Geography pilot: key features
The new course:
• Comprises a core (half a GCSE – a GCSE Short Course)
plus two optional units (along academic → vocational
continuum)
• Geography for global citizenship and reflects ‘newer
geography’
• Active experiential learning
• Assessment 33% external 67% internal and teacher
assessment is a feature in two optional units
• Core content: 3 themes; My Place in UK and Wider
World; An Extreme Environment; People as Consumers
GCSE Pilot: Opportunities for Teachers
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To draw on new aspects of the subject
To focus on active teaching/learning
To be creative and flexible in planning own course
To work with other teachers/schools and make links with
HE geographers and local community
i.e. school-based curriculum development
14 – 19 White Paper – immediate impact
•Review KS3 curriculum
- including improve geography curriculum –
concepts, flexibility, choice
•Immediate changes to GCSE and A Level
GCSE - including review coursework and reduce
assessment burden, consider impact of pilots
A/AS - increase “stretch” for most able, extended
project, reduce assessment burden (6 to 4 units)
Issues raised by 1 and 2
•Curriculum development infrastructure no longer exists
– time / resources / opportunity / stimuli
•Curriculum planning and school-based curriculum
development are “lost arts”
•Subject based professional development is inadequate
•The “mood music” is all wrong
Problems in…“making things happen” “moving debate on”
Are we stuck in an inappropriate culture and language?
•Subjects as discrete and hierarchical building blocks (English
and mathematics untouchable at the top)
•Focus on outcomes and performance (targets, qualifications)
rather than on curriculum inputs, quality of experience
•Managerial and technical solutions (training booklets grading
software) rather than professional and creative ones
•Simplistic quick fixes for political ends (6 units down to 4 at A
level, catch-up classes at KS3
What can we do?
3. Change the culture and the system
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QCA – Futures project (Tomlinson –missed
opportunity?)
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Subject Associations working with QCA at national
level via Geography Development Fund, Geography
Focus Group and dialogue with DfES and ministers
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Others – eg. Nuffield 14 – 19 Review
QCA Futures : Meeting the Challenge
QCA futures team to lead and drive a change of vision
and a modernising agenda. Aim to
•Lead the national debate about the curriculum
•Inform current initiatives and influence immediate
changes
•Inform future policy directions
•Raise the profile of QCA as an agent of change and
centre of subject expertise
Future thinking
“Education only flourishes if it successfully adapts
to the demands and needs of the time…The curriculum
cannot remain static. It must be responsive to changes in
society and the economy, and changes in the nature of
schooling itself.”
National Curriculum 1999
“All education springs from images of the future and all
education creates images of the future. …… Unless we
understand the future for which we are preparing, we do tragic
damage to those we teach”
Alvin Toffler, Learning for Tomorrow
QCA Futures:The Challenge
Forces for Change
•Changes in society and the nature of work & implications for learning
•The impact of technology on the nature of subject and schooling
•New understandings about learning & the “learning to learn” agenda
•Greater personalisation of public services and curriculum innovation
•The increasing international/global dimension to learning
The Challenge
Consider what the forces for curriculum change mean in relation to
subjects / areas of learning
Futures : Geography
Subject seminar January 24th 2005
•Suggested an agenda for action – subjects as
educational resources for an aims-led curriculum
•Suggested some “big ideas” as one element of
geography’s distinctive contribution
Futures: Agenda for action
•Need a small number of overarching aims to summarise the
dynamic and forward looking nature of the whole curriculum
•Subjects consider distinctive contribution to such a curriculum (ie
what will be missing from the curriculum if the subject did not exist)
•Then develop broad aims and a broad framework (encapsulating
the subject’s contribution via key concepts/skill/experiences) from
which courses can be developed for different age groups
•Subject framework needs be minimal/flexible to enable teachers to
‘make the curriculum’–with support, time to facilitate such SBCD
•Subject specialism and scholarship - are more, not less, important
in this process, so school/university dialogue needs strengthening
Futures Geography: Draft Key Concepts
•Geographical imagination
•Spatial awareness
•Interdependence
•Scale and scale linkages
•Environmental interaction
Nuffield 14 – 19 Review
“The 14 – 19 landscape is cluttered with policy
initiatives…….The time is ripe, therefore, for the Nuffield
Foundation to launch a thorough and independent review of
every aspect of these changes, to ask searching questions and
examine what they mean for learners, and in the light of
available evidence, to make recommendations.”
Nuffield 14 – 19 Review
Annual Report 2003 - 04
For geography,’futures’ thinking means……
•Clarity about what the subject can offer to a future curriculum
•Clarity about the appropriate relationship between the state,
schools and the subject community
•Willingness to liaise with other subjects “to make the curriculum
bigger than the sum of its parts” (Christine Counsell)
•Readiness to guard subject scholarship and subject specialism
•Commitment to enthusing students, policy makers and the public
about geography
Curriculum Development - subjects
The State
Sets out broad aims, a minimal
national curriculum and
assessment framework and
sufficient resources to support
schools and teachers
The Subject Community
The schools / teachers
Maintains and develops the subject
and ensures a lively, effective
contribution to all stages of
education
Translate the broad aims and
national frameworks as
appropriate to the the pupils
and community (SBCD)