SLN Geography Forum

I get the old and tired thing totally - just how I feel, particularly this time of year!

How long is your unit? I always tried to embed the majority of mapwork into other units - so you're using 4FGR, 6FGR, direction, scales etc... as often as possible in as many units as you can. For example, for industry I would use a DME style exercise about a superstore development in Coventry (you'll find some files relating to it at http://www.bluesquarething.co.uk/geography/economic.htm) and for the old Annie and Rosa fashion stuff I did something about Annie's factory using an old exam OS map resource I had handy (see http://www.bluesquarething.co.uk/geography/fashion.htm).

I can understand that they need a bit of an intro to the basics - 4FGR and the like - and frankly 6FGR are something you just need to keep coming back to time and time again. That's an advantage of the embedding strategy I think. I felt, years ago, that we were just teaching maps and then never, ever coming back and using maps in the majority of the work we did.

I'm sure there are lots of other things you can do.

Hit the cover right and, if you teach lots of Year 11, you'd get more bang for your buck as well.

It'd help if you had access to online journals mind. I get that as I'm an OU student - there might be a way to arrange it via whatever your local(isn) teaching training university department is.

I would think it'd be in the secure area bit - if you don't have a password for that then let me know and I'll take a look later on.

Isn't it just because that's where Hjulström stopped when he drew the original curves? Quite possibly because that's where his data ended, although I think there's a case for the lines at that point being essentially straight lines when they extrapolate anyway.

I don't think there's anything much more to it than that - it's a convenient point to stop given the shape of the curves at that point in the graph. I would imagine that more than 99% of the sediment transported would fall within the bounds of the curve.

Yes BST they did but I wanted to be a bit more realistic ha ha!

Ah, well, wouldn't we all?

The problem may be that your primary schools might not feel able to defy the will of Gove. Quite how widely that will may prevail is another question of course, although I think I read something the other day about the last two years worth of primary school being expected to apply pretty thoroughly across academy status primary schools as well as proper state primary ones. But, who knows.

Anyway, what would I want them to *know*?

I'd like them to know what geography is and what people called geographers do

I'd like them to know about the place they live - to know some of the history and how it grew up and what goes on there
I'd like them to have learned about places in other parts of the world which are different to that place as well
I'd like them to know a few names of countries and continents and seas and oceans, although not in a rote learned sort of way really (obviously...)

I'd like them to know a little bit about different types of soil and rocks and to have investigated what they look like and what their qualities are
I'd like them to know a bit about different types of jobs and how they link together
I'd like them to know a bit about the water cycle and how that works and what the different types of weather are and how we can measure them and about where we can get useful water from
I'd like them to know about crops and farming and how different places have different types of agriculture
I'd like them know a bit about volcanoes and earthquakes and floods and storms and that sort of thing - not much, just to have a vague knowledge about what goes on in those sorts of events. I think they need to know about different types of pollution and how human activity can impact on places and other people
I'd like them to know about food webs and food chains and that sort of thing, even on a quite basic level

Where I live, I'd like them to know a bit about how the sea shapes the land and how people interact with it. In other parts of the country there's probably slightly different things which fit here

There's also some stuff I'd like them to understand and some stuff I'd like them to know how to do - although I think the difference between describe and explain is hugely optimistic given that this appears to cause massive problems at GCSE. I'd certainly like them to know how to investigate something and about basic scientific method including fair testing and so on.

Most importantly of all I'd like them to come with an open mind and want to find out more.

And, my part of the bargain is that I won't teach them any of the same things again (other than to mention them in passing and to build on the basic blocks of knowledge) and I won't pretend that their primary school teachers haven't taught them anything useful about geography. That, most of all, I think is massively important.

Morning all,

Is there anyone that doesn't use exercise books at KS3? This is something I'm considering for September and I'd like to find out any experiences of this. My plan would be that each student has a folder, which by the end of Y9 contains maybe nine pieces of work, which have been levelled and detailed feedback given, along with a graph to show progress over KS3.

I'd be grateful for any feedback.

Dave

I *thought* the new national curriculum thingummy was going to essentially get rid of levels as you know them. Isn't it supposed to be a "knows this/doesn't know this" sort of thing instead of all these old levels? I'm fairly certain that was in the document I read anyway.

I think we used to do this years and years ago. Mid 90s. It became a paper chasing exercise that meant little or nothing to the kids and simply created work for teachers to be honest - although I imagine if it's done well it can be a really good thing.

Sorry to be so negative about it. It probably is worth trying to be honest; I'm just becoming an increasingly grumpy old git I think...

What about that Fakebook thing you can do with stuff like this? There's some stuff done on Old Harry with it - it might work for sink holes as well. Perhaps.

There was lots of stuff recently about someone who died in the states when their house fell into one wasn't there? Surprisingly common.

It's a jolly good job that this new curriculum idea is all about giving schools more choice about what we teach children - because (and forgive me, I can't remember the exact words) we know the things our children in our schools want.

This, of course, means that if we choose to teach about climate change we can do. We don't have to stick to the limits of this new, very open curriculum with it's much, much, much reduced content. We can teach other stuff as well. And if we're in an academy we can ignore it all entirely and use our own judgement.

So, you know, I'd sort of expect lots of climate change to still be taught. I'd hope so anyway.