IB course with Richard Allaway

A rare chance to work with Richard Allaway of Geography all the Way fame, on an IB Geography course in the UK takes place in 3 weeks time.
The course is held at Heathrow Airport, and is on a Saturday so no cover needed (probably)

Details and booking information here.

LondonMapper - perfect for GCSE Urban studies and beyond...

“Our aim is to provide unbiased information about London's social, environmental and economic issues.

“These maps are like fancy pie charts, and if something is twice the size of something else it is obvious. We just want to spark a debate about the differences in one big city.”

Professor Danny Dorling

London called me on Thursday this week, and I went down to the RGS to meet with Ben Hennig.

Ben and I are working on some educational materials for a project called LondonMapper - a website which officially launched today, funded by the Trust for London.
The educational materials are being funded by an Innovative Geography Teaching grant that we have been awarded by the Royal Geographical Society.

Ben's maps will be familiar to many from his work on WorldMapper with Danny Dorling and others from Sheffield University.
Ben now works at the University of Oxford, still with Danny Dorling, and LondonMapper is one of several exciting projects that he is working on.

The site got a lot of early publicity and was featured in quite a few of the newspapers today.
- the Guardian
- Daily Mail
- the Independent
for example...

Explore the data on this Guardian Datablog page, which includes the hedgehog map and peregrine falcon map created along with Daniel Raven Ellison as part of the Greater London National Park project

The site will be expanded in the next few weeks with a whole tranche of new maps.

By the end of the summer term, there will also be a teaching resource which I will have created. The bones of the resources already exist, and I will be working on that over half term.

Also keep an eye out for further London Mapping resources that I'll be creating in the Summer term.

Revision Tweets

Plenty of Geography revision tweets coming through the feed this weekend in advance of exams next week and beyond...
A few Twitter accounts to follow that have been sending out messages and brief reminders of case studies etc.:

@ReviseGeography
@GeographyPick
@MrsPGeographer
@SponneGeography
@AbbGeography
@salehighgeo

If you've been using Twitter to support students with revision and want to be added to the list, get in touch or add a comment below...
Keep up the good work.

Coming up to revision time....

There are plenty of ideas for helping you with revision in the Badger GCSE Book that I wrote - over two years ago now...
I came across two useful posters of advice today.

These are taken from the Twitter feed @TandLToday of Archbishop Sentamu Academy.
Thanks for making these available for sharing

TES Geography Week

As we enter the peak of REVISION time now, there's plenty of focus on what we might be teaching next year...

I've been spending a bit of time this week doing some writing for next week's TES Geography Week.

I'll be checking in next Monday to see what Matt Foulds has to say about the new Geography curriculum - get your questions ready for him....

Here's the full timetable for the week...

Monday 28 April

Join us for a live chat at 6pm with an expert from the Department for Education to discuss the changes. Send us your questions here.

Paula Owens, primary curriculum development manager at the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the primary geography curriculum:
1. Key changes, essential messages and how we ought to interpret them

2. How geography can contribute to school improvement

3. How to evaluate geography provision

4. Thinking geographically: Enquiry, mapping and fieldwork

5. Global Learning: How do we teach about the wider world?

Dr John Hopkin, head of accreditation for the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the Key Stage 3 geography curriculum:

1. What’s changed, with some first thoughts on getting started

2. Some of the key challenges

3. Curriculum making, key concepts, and going beyond

4. Geographical enquiry

5. Progression: Despite the government’s decision to abolish level descriptions, many practices which support progress in the classroom will still be useful

Tuesday 29 April
The Royal Geographical Society has produced a resource pack to help you unpick the new geography curriculum. This will focus on: i) how the curriculum has changed; ii) teaching about the UK; iii) teaching about development issues. We will be launching this here on Tuesday.

We will also have podcasts from Paula Owens and Dr John Hopkin on a range of issues relating to the new curriculum.

Wednesday 30 April
Dr Rita Gardner, director of the Royal Geographical Society, who has been particularly influential in shaping the new curriculum, will be blogging about the major changes and explaining why the curriculum is as it is.

Thursday 1 May
The Department for Education will be releasing a video about the changes to the geography curriculum.
Alan Kinder, CEO of the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the curriculum for the Department for Education.

Friday 2 May
My favourite resources: Teachers will be recommending their favourite resources. Tell us about yours in the TES Geography forums or by tweeting @tesResources.

We will have a range of blogs from practising teachers bringing you the best of the Geographical Association’s 2014 conference.

Free GCSE App available today only (22nd April)

Click HERE to get free revision app...

GCSE Changes and the GA Conference

Plenty of useful content for those teaching GCSE Geography to be gained at the GA Conference 2014
Materials from many of the sessions will be added to the GA Conference page in the weeks to come...
Here are some delegates looking at a really useful book for GCSE Fieldwork...

GCSEs are changing... are you ready ?

Published today by the DfE - new guidance on Subject Content for GCSE Geography.
Click here for PDF download.

Some interesting clarification on content, use of GIS, nature of FIELDWORK etc.

This includes the loss of Controlled Assessment as fieldwork is assessed 'through examination only'

There is mention of GIS to be used for certain tasks, and also guidance on the use of statistical techniques.
Some interesting physical and human geography also emerging.
I quite like the focus on urban challenges, something I've written about before...

Download the document and have a look yourself...

It's what you'll be teaching in a few year's time...

Remember that you can get ahead of your planning by checking out the BADGER BOOK

Flooding Case Study from Noel Jenkins

A great new resource on Digital Geography.

Flooding on the somerset levels from Noel Jenkins

Excellent work as always...

Pro-natal population policy example...

An interesting campaign to tackle low birth rates in Denmark, which could well have been an April Fool's joke given the date...
Called Do it for Denmark, it is being organised by a travel company in Denmark, and those who participate in the scheme have a chance to earn prizes if they can prove that they conceived a baby while on holiday with the firm.


An interesting one for pro-natal population policies.