David Rogers

On Friday morning, I had the privilege to talk about primary geography as part of the #GAeConf20. Entitled 'Getting to grips with the hard parts of primary geography,' the aim was not to be seen as the expert, telling others what to do. Indeed, in my role as a Chair of Governors for a primary school; my experience working in an all through setting and from cross-phase working all of my career, I have learned far more from my primary colleagues than they could ever get form me. With this in mind,  I canvased the opinions of the attendees ahead of the session using a simple Google form. From this, I found that their main areas of challenge were: - fitting in geography around the pressures of the primary curriculum; - using the local area and developing fieldwork; - map skills; - ensuring progression. I know that a range of slides means very little without the accompanying commentary, and this will be available soon on the GA website. The links to further reading and ...

Making connections between primary and secondary classrooms from David Rogers I've had better times. As I make and near some important decision making I'm taking some time to reflect about what the last two years and two terms in senior leadership has taught me.  The first was the subject of a workshop given during the recent Geographical Association Conference in Manchester and involves primary and secondary classrooms.  The slides can be viewed above, and what follows is a brief overview of the context, my thinking and some practical examples. As a leader (heavily involved in Pupil Premium students within a mainstream secondary school that serves a wonderful yet very diverse local community) I have come to believe, amongst other things, the following: Schools should be operating at a 0-18 age scale and follow and support their alumni through to their first job.  Transition isn't good enough and too many students fall by the wayside. The important thing i...