‘These highly interactive webinars [offered by the Geographical Association (GA)] provide primary teachers with the substantive knowledge to enable them to deliver relevant, engaging and stimulating geography lessons.
Focusing on different subjects each session, this course provides practical, transferable ideas to trial before rolling them out in the classroom. Take this knowledge even further by exploring the multiple connections, stereotypes and misconceptions that can make each element challenging to teach and learn.
Choose from human or physical topics in primary geography to build your confidence in the subject or take your primary geography to the next level.
Each booking also gives you complimentary access to a number of In the Know titles to take your knowledge even further.’
(See https://portal.geography.org.uk/event/view/E000158 and https://portal.geography.org.uk/event/view/E000157 for further details).
The second of two physical geography sessions took place this morning. Once again, we had a number of teachers attending throughout the UK and several accessing the recording and resources at a more convenient time. Over the course of three and a half hours, we explored the following themes, intermixed with plenty of activities, whole group discussion opportunities and contributions in the accompanying chat feed:
- Rivers and the water cycle;
- Mountains and volcanoes;
- Earthquakes and tsunamis.
Since many had attended our previous session, I simply spent a couple of minutes introducing myself, (largely for any newcomers) and reminding individuals about the Geographical Association’s website (https://geography.org.uk/), its Professional Award (https://geography.org.uk/events-cpd/cpd-toolkit/ga-professional-award/) and Primary Geography Quality Mark (PGQM) (https://geography.org.uk/quality-marks/). We then moved swiftly on to explore ‘Rivers and the water cycle‘, a theme that I completed a specialised module on and based my dissertation around whilst reading geography at the University of Durham many moons ago! Water is constantly on the move; water from melting glaciers and water held in the ground gets channelled into tiny streams that grow and join up with other streams to form rivers. Rivers form a major part of the water (hydrological) cycle; rivers are responsible for transferring water to the oceans. River landscapes are often beautiful and changeable, and provide many examples of physical geography at work. Alongside enhancing their subject knowledge, teachers were challenged to various activities and provided with additional teaching ideas.
The consensus among delegates was to continue and have a lengthier break later, so we pressed on to look at another of my all time favourite themes, ‘Mountains and volcanoes‘. The soaring grandeur of mountains and the elemental power of volcanoes has always fascinated adults and children alike. Mountains may be tourist attractions or national symbols. They can denote a country’s borders or become the source of its mineral wealth. They can be inspirational, spiritual and challenging; they are loved by artists, climbers and engineers alike. The connection between mountains and volcanoes lies at the molten core of our planet, where the gradual cooling of Earth’s core over millions of years has formed the mountains and volcanoes we see today. This geological formation of Earth is constant. Often in the news, volcanoes demonstrate the raw power of nature, and are a stark reminder of how our world was so violently created and how our human existence is dependent on a thin crust of Earth’s surface that lies above these primal, elemental forces beneath. With all these elements, mountains and volcanoes give tremendous scope for developing a stimulating and creative topic. Again, practical tasks and teaching ideas were interspersed with the drip-feeding of knowledge to ensure the audience remained suitably engaged.
Following a 20-minutes break, we reconvened to investigate a new unit entitled ‘Earthquakes and tsunamis‘. Between 1994 and 2013 an average of 218 million people were affected by natural disasters every year. During this period some 1.35 million people died; an annual average of almost 68,000 deaths. Although earthquakes and tsunamis are less common than other natural disasters, such as floods, they can be responsible for high numbers of casualties in a short period of time. The information here [explained] the theory behind earthquakes and tsunamis and [provided] a solid background for teaching about these powerful forces of nature. As I had done previously, information was relayed and supplemented with activities and suggestions to support learning both in and beyond the classroom.
I allocated a few minutes for independent exploration and to take any questions from delegates after each section. The plenary offered time for deeper reflection. At this point, individuals were asked to complete a Google Form, which gave them a chance to identify the key takeaways and their next steps, as well as providing those at the GA and myself with invaluable feedback.
Some of their ‘concluding comments’ can be viewed below:
Sum up today’s webinar in five words or a sentence or two.
Informative with lots of activity/case study/fieldwork ideas.
Useful; activity-driven; thought-provoking; engaging and supportive.
Informative; interesting; helped with my development; made me feel more confident.
Detailed; fast-paced; informative; great ideas!
Fantastic webinar, full of amazing ideas and knowledge.
Fascinating; informative; lesson ideas; fun games to play with the children.
What did you enjoy the most today and why? (WWW)
The virtual fieldwork suggestions – and the bingo!
The activities that show how we can move away from too much written work and into the activities that show children’s understanding quickly.
The interactive activities.
The book suggestions (loved these!) and activity ideas, especially fieldwork.
The sharing of activities and knowledge that can be used within my own personal teaching.
Practical games that we can use with the children.
What did you enjoy the least and why? (EBI)
A lot of time sometimes given to completing a task – not always needed.
N/A.
Would be helpful to have less focus on Upper KS2 for some activity ideas.
Lots and lots of content was wonderful, but possibly not enough time to digest in between sessions – would it be better split into 3 slightly shorter sessions instead of 2?
Nothing – just it would have been nice to have the slides before the webinar to make notes on (only this session; session 1 information was there ready).
Enjoyed all of it.
List your key takeaways from today’s webinar.
A much better understanding about all of the concepts! Much needed as I am not a geography specialist and only teach Year 1, so I’m not often exposed to what they are teaching.
A range of activities and resources that will be extremely useful to distribute to the staff at my school.
Lots of ideas for practical activities with the children.
Range of fieldwork activities to suggest across school, bringing learning to life in KS2 topics, such as earthquakes, which often feel far away from us.
Activities, knowledge and ideas.
Lots of ideas gained for replanning our new geography curriculum.
Consider your next steps. List three things that you intend to do.
Share virtual fieldwork experiences with staff. Observe some teaching in KS2.
To order a series of books to further enhance my CPD and a range of books to enhance reading across the curriculum.
Incorporate more practical activities; use more website resources, such as Digimap for Schools.
Look at opportunities to include fieldwork in each topic. Create a book list for each topic. See if I can get a budget to purchase the books!
Staff meeting; ideas to use in the classroom; share some ideas with governors.
Plan new topic; share information with other year groups; organise a staff meeting.
How has attending this webinar series supported you in your role as a Geography Subject Leader/classroom teacher?
Yes definitely!
I feel further prepared for supporting and developing geography within school.
I feel more confident with my subject knowledge and feel that I could now support other teachers with planning ideas.
It’s given me a lot more confidence in my subject knowledge (thank you, Emma, the talks were fascinating and I learned so much!!). I now have a much better grasp of what activities should look like for each key stage, vocabulary expectations and what we can do on top to further understanding (e.g. fieldwork). Thank you!
Improved my subject knowledge.
Lots of ideas for replanning our new geography curriculum.
Additional comments inserted in the accompanying chat feed or from follow-up e-mails:
Thank you very much, Emma. 🙂
If you have happened to miss this webinar series, then PDF downloads are also available to purchase via the GA’s shop, either as ten individual titles or as a full set (https://portal.geography.org.uk/shop/index?profile=In%20the%20Know). These provide straightforward, accurate and trustworthy background knowledge, explanation, diagrams and glossary on topics in the geography National Curriculum so that teachers can develop their teaching with confidence.
I look forward to the two human geography-focused sessions in early to mid March (https://portal.geography.org.uk/event/view/E000157).
Have an enjoyable and restful half-term break.