Today’s task was a contribution to the whole staff INSET day at Foxmoor Primary School near Stroud, Gloucestershire (https://www.foxmoorprimary.co.uk/). A morning had been allocated to work with classroom teachers and SLT on their whole school curriculum offering for geography.
After a formal welcome and introductions, I outlined the aims of the session. Staff then embarked upon a SWOT analysis of their current whole school curriculum for geography, initially independently, then working in key stages and lastly feeding back their written responses via a group discussion. This encouraged a degree of reflection, as well as helping to identify strengths and potential areas for development. It also provided a great opportunity to capture staff voice and supported the Geography Subject Leader and SLT in finalising their action plans and school development plans respectively for this academic year.
In order to assess coverage, sequencing and progression, we delved into various documents. I suggested that staff made themselves familiar with the content of Ofsted’s latest geography subject report, ‘Getting our bearings‘, particularly the sections entitled ‘Main findings‘ and ‘Recommendations‘ (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/subject-report-series-geography/getting-our-bearings-geography-subject-report#main-findings and https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/subject-report-series-geography/getting-our-bearings-geography-subject-report#recommendations). As progression starts from EYFS, we dipped into the EYFS statutory framework, focusing on ‘Understanding the World‘ and its three Early Learning Goals (ELGs), two of which are very specific to geography (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65aa5e42ed27ca001327b2c7/EYFS_statutory_framework_for_group_and_school_based_providers.pdf). I also referred to the non-statutory, but extremely supportive Development Matters documentation (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64e6002a20ae890014f26cbc/DfE_Development_Matters_Report_Sep2023.pdf). The ‘Understanding the World’ chapter has some superb teaching ideas for ensuring that expectations can be easily met. Next, we looked at the National Curriculum geography programmes of study for key stages 1 and 2 (https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c1ecae5274a1f5cc75e97/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Geography.pdf). I walked teachers and SLT through the written content, providing sequencing suggestions, highlighting progression and explaining geographical phenomena and vocabulary to increase their knowledge and understanding of the subject.
Following a short break, I spent time with EYFS and Key Stage 1 teachers to support them with promoting enquiry-led, outcomes-driven learning, resourcing the curriculum and consider ways in which they might take learning beyond the classroom to develop geographical skills and provide fieldwork opportunities. This will be looked at in more depth during a scheduled twilight session in early November. In addition, I answered any questions that they had. Afterwards, individuals were prompted to complete an online evaluation form, which incorporated a degree of reflection, plus identifying their next steps for the remainder of this academic year. Not only are such forms useful to me when planning ahead for our next INSET event, but they can also be hugely insightful to members of SLT.
We had fifteen minutes reprieve before I repeated the above with Key Stage 2 teachers.
Rumbling tummies meant that it was time for lunch; staff needed to be reenergised before being hit with health and safety training during the afternoon.
Some of their ‘concluding comments‘ can be found below:
Thank you so much for your time today. We have all really appreciated your guidance and knowledge with our geography overview.
Thank you for your time and support earlier. I found the training really useful to help our school begin to address how we can move forwards with our geography curriculum. It has begun a lot of discussions!
Informative.
Informative and interesting.
Thought-provoking; informative; inspiring; exciting.
Incredibly useful and eye-opening.
Very informative professional discussion around teaching and learning.
Informative, succinct and proactive.
Opportunity to review and reflect on our school curriculum in relation to statutory expectations.
Thought provoking; enlightening; food for thought; challenging.
A productive way to spend the morning, it seems!