David Rogers

I'm running through our 'New India' unit, based partly on the excellent RGS resources. To continue the literacy drive and use of a wide range of resources I'll be using some extracts out of the Booker Prize winner 'The White Tiger '.

Open evening is approaching. I also want to avoid work. Have put this together - will be forming posters in the department as well becoming the screensavers on the open night. May be useful to others. The aims of geography are targeted toward KS3 and 4 students. Have made extensive use of Creative Commons images from Flickr. Images that aren't credited are my own (well if the head of department can't put his own face up in school who can ;-) ) Aims View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

1.1 Place Understanding the physical and human characteristics of real places. Developing ‘geographical imaginations’ of places. Taken from here . Just got back from a short ride on the MTB and avoiding packing away the tents for next weekend. The clip above will form a lesson idea designed to explore Year 7's geographical imaginations. Place as the National Curriculum sees it looks like this: From this it is clear that pupils should explore different places and interpret their imaginations of place as well as other peoples. Essentially, exploring places. But how can we communicate geographical imaginations? The youtube video is one of my favorite parts of Cool Runnings . I like this as it links to the Olympics and one of the main characters says something that I very strongly believe in: 'I didn't come all this way to forget who I am and where I come from'. How would we like to remember Portsmouth if we moved away? What images will we remember in 10 years time? Below i...

As mentioned in a previous post, the Year 7 baseline assessment has been a sucess. I've also uploaded some of the resources for our first unit - Amazing Places here . The unit's inspiration comes form the RGS scheme and ideas used from Tony, Alan and Noel. The idea is that Year 7 get a 'taster' of geography - lightly skimming the surface of issues before revisited them later on in KS3. One issue that has been a challenge is differentiating for the lower ability classes at Priory. Although these classes love discussion, some of the more open ended tasks (the Iceland film crew briefing document for example) need a lot of scaffold. However, early work is very pleasing and Year 7 seem engaged! I have also tried to stick to a number of key principles across the department. One is that pupils can choose how they present homework and projects. Pupils are sticking to their strong points early on and this allows them to focus on the geography rather than using a presentation tec...

A work in progress but based upon the Sept 2008 level descriptors.

Spent the weekend in the New Forest helping to train adult volunteers how to take young people into the outdoors. The course is based at the Burgate school in Fordingbridge. I really enjoy these courses as it's a chance top meet many like minded people who are passionate about outdoor learning. It does make me wonder about the number of topics that are unnecessarily taught within the confines of a classroom in geography. For example - how many people teach map skills in the class room? To me this has never made sense and I try to ensure that map skills are taught in the context of outside. For example, using a 1:25,000 map of the school grounds to explore contours. Portsmouth must be the flattest place on earth (ok, maybe an exaggeration!). There is only 1/2 contour lines that cut through the school so Year 7 act a detectives to see if they can find them. I'll be thinking about the other topics that could be taught outside using the school grounds and what is around the local ...

First department meeting tomorrow so I've been working in some initial ideas for Key Stage 3. I've based ideas upon Noel's 'Fantasy KS3' and ideas from Teaching Geography, the RGS as well as drawing upon units of work developed in Hampshire over the past year and some of my own ideas. As there is so much to do it is important to keep the workload down as much as possible! I've also got to be realistic about the amount of work that can be done before July. These are just rough thoughts at the moment and I hope to trash out a curriculum map by the end of the meeting! I've tried to narrow down the priorities, but they still from a long list! Use of ICT and other media · Assessment using a variety of methods e.g. oral presentations, drama, written o To include AfL opportunities · Fieldwork – learning outside of the classroom · Develop teamwork · Enquiry · Independent learning · Links with other subjects · Global dimension · Sustainability · Enterprise · Key con...

Well it's been a quite few weeks for me as far as blogging goes. Things on the work front though have been manic! I hope that you all had a good new year and Christmas period and are sorting out your feelings on the pay deal announced today! I'm now two weeks int my new post of Curriculum Leader - Geography, although I don't have the official badge yet! As well as getting on top of my classes (some of which I have done through the employment of an ice axe and crampons!) there is a massive amount to do! I particularly enjoyed my first week without any technology! The rolling blackboard came down very soon to b replaced with a simple whiteboard and the projector turned up shortly afterwards. The next trick is to convince the rest of the department that using ICT is easy, necessary and fun! A great resource at the school is that I have access to the roof. This looks over the who of Portsmouth and will be great for (very) local fieldwork! The site also provides an ideal locatio...

This blog has been very quiet recently! This is due to a large number of projects sapping my time! Still, I hope to update you all on what I've been up to and how this is improving my geography teaching. On Monday I'll be presenting a workshop at the Hampshire Secondary Heads of Geography Annual Conference. The focus is on Visionary Geography. With the upcoming revision of KS3 I'm looking forward to a positive day! I've uploaded the presentation to Slideshare and also have provided a short survey of delegates thoughts. I am genuinely interested in your feedback! Finally, it would be great to see you sharing ideas and successes so feel free to leave a comment! Leave feedback: Click Here to take survey