Geography Teaching Today

I attended the Geography and I.C.T. conferences in Newcastle recently and as a result produced some medium term plans which encompassed our usual "Polar Regions" topic. However I expanded this to cover the very topical concerns about global warming and climate change. I also had to focus on how to incorporate I.C.T. into this work. It focussed my attention on cross-curricular planning and I feel added new life and vitality to the children's learning. I feel inspired by the training and the work I have focussed on to try to not only improve other areas of my year group's geography but also as Geography co-ordinator to encourage other staff to try new approaches. I have thoroughly enjoyed sharing ideas with colleagues also during the two days and have learned a lot. It has been inspiring.

By completing a curriculum making course, myself and my department have learnt about the enjoyment and satifaction that pupils get out of the subject when combining it with ICT. The unit of work that I created whilst enroled on a curriculum making course has been incorporated into our KS3 programme with success.

Re: face-to-face CPD event in London.

Thank you for an excellent day yesterday. It was really good to share ideas and look at other ways of developing existing QCA units. It has been one of the most helpful courses that I have been involved with.

I've just completed the Curriculum Making Course in Manchester in Education for Sustainable Development in the Primary sector. I was inspired by David Lambert's key-note address; reassured and empowered by the emphasis of the tutors on the importance of teachers in the role of curriculum makers and enthused to take ideas from colleagues back to my school.

My favourite idea was to look at how other subjects, including Literacy and Numeracy, can support Geography.

Thanks to the Action Plan for Geography for enabling this all to happen.

I spent a very worthwhile day yesterday; sharing ideas with other colleagues, engaging and becoming enthused about new ideas regarding primary Geography and ESD and generally being reassured that my ideas and thinking about the future of Geography in my school were correct. Thank you. I can't wait to see the results uploaded.

The two days renewed my enthusiasm for geography, and reaffimed my belief of its importance in the primary phase. I was shown ways of making it exciting and relevant to all age groups with examples of real work done by teachers in their schools. We were given links to excellent resources and introduced to creative ways of using ICT. Geography learning and teaching should be inspirational and full of awe and wonder. There was plenty of time to learn from colleagues, to share ideas and feel confident to use some of these in school.

The geography Curriculum Making course held in Bristol was very well planned and organised. There were lots of varied activities throughout the two days. The input from the officers and support staff from the GA allowed high quality collaborative learning to take place. Meeting and working with geography teachers from other schools was very stimulating and worthwhile. Thank you.

The Curriculum Making course has been an extremely positive experience for me. Having time to share ideas and enthusiasm has spurred me on to change the current scheme of work in line with the new 'conceptual geography'. It's so useful and important to have these sessions.

This course has provided me with ideas and inspirations. I have developed Schemes of Work and activities to motivate children and teachers in their teaching and learning of geography.

My enthusiasm for geography has been revived and levels of attainment in my school are improving. The children enjoy geeography lessons and instead of groaning at the mention of it, now look forward to it.

It has been good for our school SEF which recognised the use of ICT as an issue.

"Passionate about geography" is a phrase which stuck in my mind from the first conference. As a non-geography specialist and having been 'given' the area to lead, it hadn't been a phrase I would have used before.

However through the first and then evaluation conference, I was convinced and enthused about geography. ESD (and the interest the children show in it) is something that seems more relevant than many things we teach. I might even become passionate about geography!!

Valuable opportunity to discuss the programme of study and discuss how we will implement it. Valuable as reading it in isolation I would have anticipated a complete overhaul of what we have - nice to hear that my attempt at curriculum making wasn't too far off beam.

in my understanding, geography plays a major role anywhere in
the world including here in africa. it has promoted cultural, social
as well as economic levels of africans.As a spatial science, geography
assist the learners to be aware of the spatial distribution of world phenomena.