Skip to main content

Fieldwork in geography: responding to the 2016 GCSE Geography spec

I'm certain that very few people have failed to notice that GCSEs are changing.  In terms of Geography, the biggest challenge that many face is the changes to fieldwork. During the Year of Fieldwork, we see the most distinctive part of the subject reduce from 25% to 15% and from Controlled Assessment to and examination paper.

Many will not be sorry to see Controlled Assessment go in terms of workload. Although I can understand this, I see it as a great loss to our ability to explore high quality geography: the fieldwork enquiry is what geographers do.  The fear around an exam paper is that students can be drilled to pass them, and I hope that Ofqual try to ensure that this doesn't happen.

Having said this, there are positives:

  • Students will need a deeper understanding of fieldwork and therefore do more of it.
  • The inclusion of two contrasting environments and a signed statement of fieldwork completed provides powerful leverage for more fieldwork.
  • Geography's position in Progress 8 as an EBACC subject means that regular high quality fieldwork that is embedded throughout all year groups is even more important.
I would urge leaders of geography departments to start the argument now in order to secure fieldwork. In addition, I don't really see the content changes as too much of an issue - we are geographers and able to learn new things.

The fieldwork aspect of geography, especially how it is assessed, will probably be the key decided factor for my department between specifications.  Of course, none of these have been approved yet. For those in a 3 year KS4 or those in a more traditional model itching to get planning, I would recommend starting with the geomorphology and a development issues as these are fixed as fundamental geographical knowledge and development underpins knowledge and understanding for much of the subject. 

For those that are interested, here are the slides from my workshop:

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
5 comments
Read more

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...
4 comments
Read more

Year 10 need your help! Can we get Twitter and Facebook in to a GCSE project?

I’ve been told that social media has no place in the classroom.  Now, this post is not to battle that argument head on.  Let’s smash it. This week, Year 10 are visiting Hengistbury Head .  They are investigating whether this piece of coastline should be protected.  They are wondering what you think? You may know the location well, you may not know it at all.  But we’d like to hear from you all the same.  This will either result in some usable data and comments, or not.  Either way, we'll know and I’m sure that your comments will help spark discussion in class! What would Year 10 like me to do? Just simply comment on this post or tweet me, with an answer to this question: ‘Should Hengistubury Head be protected from the Sea? Just answer Yes or No and give a brief reason.  It would also be useful if you could tell us whether you know the area or not. Many thanks in anticipation……   Image – my own.
23 comments
Read more