New post-16 National Conference

Image by Alan Parkinson - as seen in "Look at it this Way"...

Details of the Geographical Association's first Post 16 National Conference are now on the GA website.

This will take place in London on the 22nd of June 2010

This conference will discuss ways to enhance A-level teaching and learning through two major themes: rivers, floods and management and the impact of urban change. The workshops will include ideas for fieldwork and the use of ICT, and how to prepare students for the fieldwork examination questions.

Online booking already available...

There are large discounts for student GA members.

Literacy in Geography

Have just been planning some materials for an event in Suffolk in a couple of week's time.

This will involve a range of strategies for exploring literacy in geography.

I have taken quite a lot of inspiration from the Scottish literacy outcomes, and the work of Bill Boyd and other colleagues in Scotland.

Embedded below is a presentation by Ollie Bray which was used at a CPD event in Edinburgh recently, and kindly shared via Slideshare.

Literacy, CfE and ICT

View more presentations from Ollie Bray.

It refers to the Scottish literacy outcomes, which are worth looking at, as they have quite a wide definition of what a "text" that students engage with might be....

A key idea for me is that geography literally means "writing the earth", and students should be given a range of opportunities for sharing their ideas about the world, both individually and in collaboration with other learners.

As Ollie's presentation suggests, there is a range of web based tools that can be used for supporting students with some creative literacy tasks....

Will share more once my session has been used with Suffolk colleagues...

Art at the Royal Academy

My wife went on a school art trip down to the Royal Academy of Arts and Tate Modern yesterday. Below are a few of the images she took of the sculptures outside the building.

There was also news of a forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy called EARTH: Art of a changing world...

This is timed to coincide with the Copenhagen Climate Change talks, and opens on the 5th of December and goes through to

TICKETS CAN BE BOOKED HERE

I'm in London during that period so will certainly be going along.

There is also a connection with the CAPE FAREWELL project which I used as my POLAR context when teaching the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography...

Functional Skills Support Programme

For the last few months, I have been involved in a writing project, which finally finished today, at the Malmaison hotel in Birmingham - not the greatest place to get to from where I live it has to be said...

The project was to produce a Geography booklet: one of a series of 11 to support the secondary National Strategy's Functional Skills Support Programme.

This is supported by the DCSF and LSIS

Functional Skills are "the essential elements of English, mathematics and ICT that equip individuals to operate confidently, effectively and independently in life and work."

Look out for the Geography booklet, which contains 3 suggested lesson sequence contexts for teaching these skills in GEOGRAPHY, in March 2010

Visit the FS SUPPORT website for more details on Functional Skills.

GA Conference 2010

The GA Conference programme for 2010 has now been finalised by Lucy Oxley, and is available to download in various formats from the GA CONFERENCE area of the website.

This year, there are a series of colour coded CPD PATHWAYS, which can be seen above, to reflect the particular personal CPD needs that teachers might have, and also certain school priorities.

I will be attending a whole range of events over the course of the 3 days, and will blog more about the sessions I am involved in nearer the time.

BOOKING IS NOW AVAILABLE

Booking can be done in various ways...

The conference price is held at 2009 prices !

There is also an EARLY BIRD BOOKING price - the early bird booking period ends on the 31st of December 2009

Free registration is available to all full-time and PGCE students. Please attach proof of your student status, e.g. photocopy of your NUS card, with your completed booking form. Online booking for students is available but proof of status will be required by email, fax or post.Bookings cannot be processed without this proof. Please note: student registration does not include lunch, however there are several outlets situated within the exhibition area where you can purchase hot and cold food.

Northumberland Coastal Resource

Images by Alan Parkinson

On Friday this week, I had the chance to travel up part of the Northumberland coast as part of my journey north to Edinburgh with a car full of GA materials.

Took the road from Alnwick to Beadnell: familiar from several family holidays, and then took in views of Seahouses, Bamburgh Castle, Grace Darling Museum, Holy Island etc.

Thanks to my colleague Wendy North for alerting me to a resource produced to inspire people to explore the Northumberland coast, called OUR COAST, OUR SEA....

Some nice geographical ideas here: check them out !

By the way, the haddock and chips from Neptune's restaurant in Seahouses were worth the wait.