Geography Teaching Today

The TDA Professional Standards cover the following career stages:

• Q - qualified teacher status
• C - core standards for main scale teachers who have successfully completed their induction
• P - post-threshold teachers on the upper pay scale
• E - excellent teachers
• A - advanced skills teachers (ASTs)

The standards are arranged in three sections:

• Professional attributes
• Professional knowledge and understanding
• Professional skills.  

Each set of standards builds on the previous set, so that a teacher aspiring to become an excellent teacher would need to satisfy the standards that are specific to that status (E) and meet the preceding standards (C and P).

How does Chartered Geographer (Teacher) link to this?

Chartered Geographer (Teacher) status is aimed at geography teachers who meet the expected standards for excellent teachers (E). Using the Professional Standards can help prospective CGeogs to plan their career path and progression, ready to apply for Chartered Geographer (Teacher) status after 6 years of teaching. The following areas of the standards (shown as bullet points) link directly to the CGeog (Teacher) requirements (shown in bold below):

Demonstrate how you have kept up to date with geography as a subject discipline

• Reflect on your use of up-to-date subject knowledge and pedagogy.
• Having a more developed knowledge and understanding of geography and related pedagogy including learning progresses within it
• Know and understand the relevant statutory and non-statutory curricula and frameworks, including those provided through the National Strategies, for geography.

Demonstrate how you have kept up-to-date with the pedagogy of the teaching of geography and the geography curriculum

• Reflect on your use of up-to-date subject knowledge and pedagogy.
• Having an extensive, up-to-date working knowledge and understanding of a range of teaching, learning....strategies and knowing how to use and adapt them.
• Having a more developed knowledge and understanding of geography and related pedagogy including how learning progresses within it.

Show that you are planning coherent progression and/or curriculum development in teaching and learning

• Research and evaluate innovative curricular practices and draw on research outcomes and other sources of external evidence to inform your own practice and that of colleagues.

Engaging students in fieldwork

• Identify and use opportunities to personalise and extend learning through out-of-school contexts where possible by making links between in-school learning and learning in out-of-school contexts

Developing students' confidence to apply their own geographical knowledge, understanding and skills

• Implementing effective strategies to meet the learning needs of children and young people leading to improvements in pupil outcomes.

Describe your provision of CPD and training, writing publications, involvement in working groups and other activities in which you take a leadership, management or mentoring role in the development of geographical teaching within your or other schools.

• All teachers should have a professional responsibility to be engaged in effective, sustained and relevant professional development throughout their careers and all teachers should have a contractual entitlement to effective, sustained and relevant professional development throughout their careers.
• Will need to reflect on and discuss how you might plan your future development.
• Act as role models for teaching and learning, make a distinctive contribution to raising standards across the school, continue to develop your expertise post threshold and provide regular coaching and mentoring to less experienced teachers.
• Undertaking and leading school improvement activities and continuing professional development for other teachers.
• Be committed to improving your practice through appropriate professional development.
• Contribute to the professional development of colleagues through coaching and mentoring, demonstrating effective practice and providing advice and feedback.
• Contribute to the professional development of colleagues using a broad range of techniques and skills appropriate to their needs.

Discuss your role as a teacher of geography and how you seek to build and share your subject knowledge and teaching expertise across the geographical community to improve students' geographical learning.

• The expectations about the contribution teachers make to the development of others should take account of their levels of skills, expertise and experience, their role within the school, and reflect on their use of up-to-date subject knowledge and pedagogy.
• Will need to reflect on and discuss how you might plan your future development.
• Act as role models for teaching and learning, make a distinctive contribution to raising standards across the school, continue to develop your expertise post threshold and provide regular coaching and mentoring to less experienced teachers.
• Provide an exemplary model to others through your professional expertise, have a leading role in raising standards by supporting improvements in teaching practices and support and help your colleagues to improve their effectiveness and to address their development needs through highly effective coaching and mentoring.
• Work as a team member and identify opportunities for working with colleagues, managing their work where appropriate and sharing the development of effective practice with them.

Show how you may be working at different levels in the provision of the above, for example within your school, locally or nationally

• Focussed on your ability to carry out work with other schools.
• Provide regular coaching and mentoring to less experienced teachers.
• Draw on the experience you gain elsewhere to improve practice in your own and other schools.
• Have a commitment to collaboration and co-operative working where appropriate.