Geography Teaching Today

We are all subject leaders in our own classrooms, with the power to shape, innovate and construct learning to suit our pupils. Nevertheless, we do not operate in isolation: we support and share ideas with colleagues, liaise with school subject leaders and feed back our triumphs and areas of concern to the network of which we are a strand. But we can only make that network strong if our own fibre is strong which is why it is essential for us to strengthen leadership in our own classrooms.

In much the same way, when we talk about citizenship, there are structures that we can set up in school and networks with hierarchies to support pupils in taking part in real democratic decision-making. However, that democratic structure would be weak if the individual citizens had not been supported to develop their own self-esteem, self-confidence and sense of participation. It is important to consider how development of the 'self' can be used alongside collaborative structures to give synergy to citizenship thinking and potential.

One reason why the topic of school councils has been left until last is because it was important to first consider how pupils could develop their potential for action starting from individual thoughts, ideas and experiences. The capacity of school councils to support active citizenship is huge, provided that they are run along fully participative principles - think Hart's Ladder again!

The Eco-Schools programme is a marvellous impetus for new thinking, and helps schools to engage with some of the scarier issues of today, such as pollution, global warming, water and energy shortages, in structured and supported ways. See www.eco-schools.org for more information.

For this last activity, look at this PowerPoint and consider the questions raised in the notes section.

How could you use this resource to develop thinking in your school about everyday geography and active citizenship?

• As a prompt for your own classroom and personal development?
• With colleagues in your year group to prompt planning?
• With colleagues in your key stage to discuss progression?
• At a whole school meeting to plan and write policy documents?
• At governor/parent/staff/school council meetings to identify action steps for the School Improvement Plan?
• With colleagues from other schools to promote and share ideas?
• In other ways...?

Finally, reflect on how a learning journey might be structured using the citizenship strand of geography. One idea as to how this process might develop is given in this Learning Journey diagram.

How will you enhance geography through citizenship in your classroom/school/community?

The next steps are down to you, as we want you to feed back and share ideas, suggestions, outcomes, problems and how they were solved, plans, activities - anything that has come out of your development in this area. So please, use the space on this site to enter into the discourse about the wonderful potential and power of geography.

Course End