Dorset Coast Pre-visit

Unconsolidated muds below Naish Holiday Village.

As part of the department's plan to expand fieldwork opportunities I ventured to Barton on Sea and Hurst Castle Spit last week. The plan is to take Year 10's in order to investigate the interaction between people and physical landforms. I had hoped to upload some photos of the visit however Blogger seems to be playing up at the moment!

Old chalet slabs on the cliff top. Naish Holiday Village
We have chosen two sites to investigate. The first is at Highcliffe beach. This provides a classic coastal management case study where the effect of managed retreat can be seen under the Naish Holiday Park. This site also forms the boundary between two counties and councils. The second site will be Hurst Castle Spit. I feel it's very important to link any visit into the classroom both before and after. Therefore we shall be switching our coastal management case study from Lulworth Cove to Hurst Castle Spit. The visit will also be followed up by an excellent mystery developed by the HIAS Geography advisor.

Coastal defence management on the Dorset side of Chewton Bunny
In the research associated with putting together a case study to accompany the visit I have come across two excellent sites. The first is hosted by the University of Southampton and provides a great overview of the situation including some very useful historic photographs. The second is the New Forest Council coastal management site. There are very useful PDF downloads that cover each zone of the Hampshire zone. If anyone knows of a similar resource covering the Dorset side I would be very grateful for the information!

Comments

High Impact, Low effort

This month is the start of the #29daysofwriting challenge. I enjoyed this last year and will be using my Staffrm account to post. I'll also be reporting here, both to give a little more detail and to keep a log of what I have written. The challenge developed a great sense of community last year, which is why I'm choosing to write on Staffrm. What I would say to those who are new to writing or don't want to run out of ideas is: Write for yourself. Clarify an idea, write something out loud. The process of distilling thoughts into writing is immensely beneficial to your practice. If other read, comment and respond, that's a bonus. Ignore the muppets who know nothing of your context, style or students. Mix it up - I like to read about real stuff from real classrooms and schools and also about other stuff. If we always write about school, how does that work for workload? If you've nothing nice to say, don't say it. So, the following has been ...

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey. As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others. Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up. I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions. From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment. From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die. How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach? Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment i...

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words...

David Rogers

Search This Blog