David Rogers

My son’s current cartoon hero is Fireman Sam.  Sam is a workaholic for sure and is well known for always being at the emergency.  In his words, ‘A good fireman is never off duty.’  Teaching can often feel like that.  The steps up from Phase One up to Phase Two and Three during a PGCE course; from PGCEer to an NQT and from NQT to NQT+1 are daunting. A question that I often get asked is how it’s possible to cram it all in.  The question comes from trainee teachers, NQTs and experienced teachers alike.  Now, I consider myself to be very disorganised and quite forgetful.  Most of the time I rely upon what’s in my head.  Not a great system many would say! This post is an attempt to summarise my approach of organisation and prioritisation in my professional life.  I should add a caveat which is I operate under the assumption that people will shout at me if I forget something important.  I also take the approach that a teaching team exist...

And I'm not thinking about that dodgy Robson and Gerome version either! At SAGT and over the past few years I have been asked one question above any other: where do you find the time? When I consider where I was 10 years ago and then think about what I've managed to do - time does go slowly. Time has taken on a totally different meaning since becoming a new dad. This post is an attempt to share with readers where I find the time. First a story: Here I am at the end of what would be considered a 'minor epic' in Scottish mountaineering circles. It was very dark. The air temperature was around -10 degrees. The ground was sheet ice caused by lots of rain saturating the ground and then a sudden drop in temperature. It was just a tad scary. The place was Ben Nevis. The photo below was taken very close to the summit. I have been up 'The Ben' many times using a variety of routes. 9 times out of 10 there has been no view. We stopped and took in what we saw. We to...

It's a busy month October. On top of current commitments, I also need to meet with an enthusiastic geography governor who is also head of Lifelong Learning for the local council. The problem was were we could fit each other in. He introduced me to Meet-O-Matic a free tool designed to find the best time to meet. Very quick and easy and now there is another meeting stored in the calendar!

Mmmm, on the train again. I enjoyed recent post by Doug Belshaw about increasing productivity and I have today that using mobile broadband and the train has increased my production! And it needs to! One of the issues of taking over a department with an inadequate curriculum is that everything (well almost everything) has to change at once. This means that the department is around 1-2 weeks ahead of the pupils. We are also evaluating the curriculum as we go - making changes and consulting pupils. We have also set up pupil groups, their job is to advise us on how the curriculum can meet their needs more effectively. Participatory Geography in action! I have created some 4shared folders containing the Schemes of Work and some resources that are being used in the department.