Quality Mark Twitter Chat

Starting next Monday - between 4pm and 6pm…

Go Jetters

Go Jetters are new on CBBC: a new animated series, and the geography advisors on the show are my former colleagues Paula Owens and John Lyon. The Go Jetters have global adventures.

Check them out on iPlayer, or play the Global Glitch game.

Cover of forthcoming GCSE textbooks

GI Learner project

For the next 3 years, I am going to be involved in a project with a number of EU partners (schools, universities and other partners) called GI-LEARNER. I am co-ordinating the involvement of my school, who is a partner in the project.

I've mentioned the project previously, but am currently in Bruges for the start-up meeting, where we have been discussing the practicalities of setting up the various events, activities, research and resource creation that is going to occupy us for the next few years, along with around 100 students of ages from 7-13.

Partner representatives exploring Bruges

The partners involved are:

Four schools

Sint-Lodewijkscollege, Bruges, Belgium 

King’s Ely, Cambridgeshire

Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Salzburg, Nonntal, Austria 

Liceul Teoretic "Dimitrie Cantemir" Iasi, Romania

Two universities

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 

Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium

European Association of Geographers  (EuroGeo)

You can follow our Twitter feed here: @GILearner where we will be sharing more information on our project and how it develops.

Watch out for the #gilearner hashtag too.
The school is also involved in the MOOS project, and the attractive website for this project is here.

New GIS materials

In 2014, the Royal Geographical Society awarded two teachers an Innovative Geography Teaching grant of £1000 to fund the development of new resources, based on the use of Census data.
I was one of those teachers, and worked with Ben Hennig to create a new education section of the LondonMapper website: a new project involving Professor Danny Dorling, which explores London through a series of cartograms using Census data.
My Scheme of Work explores the LondonMapper website and materials, and uses the idea of future urbanists looking back at London to see how it has changed over the years.
It connects with the other unit that I wrote for the RGS called Mapping London.

The second grant was awarded to Paul Turner, who takes over as Head of Geography at Bedales School in September. He worked with Dr Adam Dennett, a lecturer from UCL who works at CASA.
Paul's website and materials can now be viewed here, and he is keen to connect with teachers who want to trial the materials. You can contact Paul via the site.
There are 10 lessons which act as an introduction to QGIS, and the mapping and analysis of Census data.

Greater London National Park proposal

The Expedition Game - from the RSGS

A brand new resource from the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

A new teaching resource is available on our website. Together with Perth and Kinross council we have created a downloadable resource, to prompt discussion about personal qualities, leadership, and team work. The resource links to several curricular areas, including Geography, English, Maths, Biology and Outdoor Learning.

The Expedition is a role play game tracing the story of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-16). 

The game links into the SQA, SCQF and Curriculum for Excellence.

Please click this link to access the resource, from the RSGS website. (PDF Download 13.2Mb)

This is a significant piece of work, written by Perth and Kinross Outdoor Education team's David Girling along with the RSGS Education Officer Rachel Hay. I am looking at this with interest as a possible resource for next year.

Leeds: your thoughts welcome to help shape a new resource...

GA Conference Beermeet

I met with my HoD: Claire Kyndt this lunchtime to talk through the lecture that we are doing at the Geographical Association Conference on the 10th of April.
Here's the details for you:

Date: Friday 10 April       

Time: 13.50-14.40          

Session number: Lecture 6

Title of session: 

The impact of the ordinary: the story of a geography department

Room type: Lecture Theatre      

Room allocated: D7

Once that's over I have to head over to do the plenary for the double workshop being organised by the GA's Secondary Phase Committee and led by Bethan Harries. 

Then I have a meeting of folks from the GeoCapabilities project.

In the evening there's the 4th or 5th annual BeerMeet. Here's this year's poster, designed by Richard Allaway, with an original illustration by the redoubtable Tom Morgan Jones.

See you there....

Teach in London ? We'd like a moment of your time...

IAPS CPD - free, next Thursday...

Fancy a free CPD day at my school ? 
Details below, but you'll have to let us know quickly if you're coming along...

Next week, there is a chance to take part in a free CPD session which is taking place at my school for Primary colleagues.

There are 3 sessions. One of them is on the GA's Primary Geography Quality Mark, and I'll be leading that one to kick off the day. My HoD Claire will then be talking about images.
After lunch, there's a chance to hear Paula Owens from the Geographical Association talking about the Global Learning Programme.

If you teach in the area and fancy coming along, let me know...

UPDATE: Event running on 4th of June.... Get in touch if you want to come along...

IAPS District 9 Quality Geographies

Conference in Toulouse

A few days ago, I picked up the news of a conference being organised by Russel Tarr at the International School of Toulouse.

I was due to go to the previous event in 2012 that Russel organised, but it clashed with something I was already committed to. This time round, that's not a problem

The focus is on pedagogy, and there's a keynote from Ewan McIntosh.

Good to see my name in the programme (though that's subject to getting permission to go from school as it's during term time)

It's a combination of Mission:Explore and GeoCapabilities....
Looking forward to the possibility of visiting Toulouse.

Delighted to announce that @GeoBlogs will deliver a workshop at #PracPed15! http://t.co/dFvwgKKMIV pic.twitter.com/0AIUY5DwRk #geographyteacher
— Russel Tarr (@russeltarr) February 19, 2015

I-USE Course in Stockholm

You can apply for funding to come free of charge, but you need to be sharpish - perhaps a job for half term...

I-Use Teacher Training Course by GeoBlogs