Discover Iceland with Richard and Matt

Discover the World are organising an exciting-sounding CPD event in Iceland in June which involves Richard Allaway and Matt Podbury.

This is designed for those teaching (or preparing to teach) international qualifications.


Day 1 - 29th June 2019

Arrive in Keflavik and head to the Hafnarfjordur area for your overnight stay.

Day 2 – 30th June 2019

8.00 – 8.15 Welcome from Discover the World Education from our travel specialist, Beverley Cameron.

8.15 – 10.15 The Physical Geography of Iceland, lecture by Professor Chris Davies.

10.15 – 10.30 coffee break

10.30 – 12.30 workshops by Matt Podbury and Richard Allaway

12.30 – 20.00 Tour of Iceland’s iconic Golden Circle guided by Chris Davies including stops at Thingvellir, Geysir, Gullfoss and a few hidden gems.

Overnight in Selfoss area




Day 3 - 1st July 2019

Depart hotel at 8am for an exciting tour of Iceland including:
Visit to the geothermal town of Hveragerdi
View two of Iceland’s most remarkable waterfalls, Seljalandsfoss and Skogafoss
Discover the incredible Solheimajokull glacier
Explore the black sand beaches at Reynisfjara
Witness Iceland’s newest spectacle; the Icelandic Lava Show.

You’ll head back to Keflavik for your last night before returning home on the morning of the 2nd July.

Go here to find out more, and book your place.
Will be jealous of all those going along, as a few days in such good company in such an amazing place will be a perfect way to set up the summer...

And if you then book a trip you will get the money back, so think of it as an "inspection visit with benefits..."

Discover the World with Mission:Explore

Over the last few months, we've been working hard to put together a deal which will connect The Geography Collective, creators of Mission:Explore with Discover the World, the leading school travel company to destinations such as Iceland.
We're going to be writing missions which will be available for students and teachers who book a tour with Discover the World...

The first place that we've visited is one of the great places in the world: ICELAND.

I'm working with geography teacher John Sayers, and our editor and illustrator Helen and Tom, along with other Geography Collective colleagues, to put together a booklet which will available to all those schools that book a trip with Discover the World. It will contain missions, and ideas for linking the experience of visiting Iceland and completing the missions with the curriculum, and exam specifications.

We've created a whole load of missions which we're now editing down and preparing to be released into the wild in early 2013.

I'll let you know more about how things are developing with the project over the next couple of months, and look forward to seeing some of you soon on a windswept sandur, or cramponing over a crevasse-strewn glacier...

Alan Hubertsson (my special Iceland-Explorer name...)

The Outstanding Geography Student Award

This is a new initiative that has been created by Discover the World and the Geographical Association.

Check the DTW blog for more information.

Discover the World have teamed up with the WorldWise strand of the Geographical Association to offer your students an outstanding opportunity. In September 2012 we will be announcing details of an exciting new annual award; aimed at Y9/10/11 students. Enter your students’ essays, relevant to their studies, into this national competition, and be in with the chance of winning five places on an incredible Norway study trip for your school. The winning school and student will also receive a GA certificate to be announced at the GA annual conference in April 2013.  

To enter students can submit an essay answering one of the questions provided. Essay questions will be relevant to DTW study aids and the various syllabuses helping to facilitate student learning. At the time of the launch there will be three Discover the World study aids:

1. Eyjafjallajokull volcano, Iceland.

2. Solheimajokull glacier, Iceland.

3. Tourism in Norway.

In addition, in no more than 200 words, students are to explain why they should win the award, how they will benefit from the experience and how they will use geography in their later life.

The competition is designed to:

 - help promote geography as an exciting subject.

 - incentivise students to write an essay, relevant to their studies, whilst facilitating their learning.

 - encourage students to study geography post GCSE.

 - help aid teachers when promoting their subject at options.

 - recognise outstanding geography students.

Placing Place...

Preparing some materials for a course in a few week's time. It's being held at the HQ of travel company Discover the World.
The course is being run along with Simon Ross, who produced a number of books that I made heavy use of when teaching, particularly his mapskills book.
The theme is Developing a Global Sense of Place at KS3 and GCSE. I'm exploring KS3.

There are quite a few areas that I could focus on as PLACE is a key concept in geography, and the idea of visiting places is central to the work of Discover the World.

As always, once the germ of an idea comes to me, it's time to flesh it out with various resources and web tools. I have put together two sessions which will eventually be shared on Slideshare.
Interestingly, the OFSTED Subject Report on Geography, published in 2011, made a series of recommendations.
The first was that schools should:

• focus strongly on developing pupils’ core knowledge in geography, particularly their sense of place

It's interesting that a sense of place is described as core knowledge ?

I'll be using a lot of my own images of distant places, and others by colleagues. Images of places can be obtained from COMPFIGHT
This enables searching for images which are copyright cleared through Creative Commons.

I shall be referring to the following books / resources, as well as some of the outcomes from the GA's National Curriculum Reform Working Group that I have been serving on. Some of the things that we've heard from Michael Gove this week have meant a fresh perspective on some of this work.

There'll also be lots of ideas to take away as always.

Some references
"The Power of Place" - Harm de Blij
"Teaching Geography 11-18" - David Lambert and John Morgan
"a different view" - Geographical Association manifesto
"How to be an explorer of the world" - Keri Smith
"Arctic Dreams" - Barry Lopez
"Journey Journal" - The Geography Collective
"Mission:Explore" - The Geography Collective
'Look at it this Way' - Alan Parkinson
'Learning through Enquiry' - Margaret Roberts
'Oops' - Hywel Roberts

Image: Alan Parkinson - Valle Blanche, below Mont Blanc