Geography: provision is good when
1. high expectations of pupils by subject leaders and teachers in the classroom are passed onto and subsequently held by pupils themselves; good working relationships exist with pupils and between pupils;
2. teachers have good subject knowledge and a passion for the subject; they enthuse pupils with recounts of their travels and experiences and arouse young peoples' curiosity about the world and its future;
3. teachers focus on improving standards regardless of ability by valuing achievement whatever the prior attainment, by creating a 'can achieve' culture, using a full range of teaching and learning style activities to challenge pupils to make them think and understand more deeply about issues and places they are studying;
4. subject self-review acts as a firm basis for effective planning and a good basis for improvement; the subject leader has monitored teaching, learning and the standards of attainment and knows what action needs to be taken for sustained improvement;
5. curriculum development is a team approach where all geography teachers are involved with the cycle of review and development, creating new units, new lesson approaches and resources. Geographical enquiry and skills are integrated into study of themes and real places;
6. the teaching and learning environment is stimulating and conducive to geographical learning. Resources are accurate and up-to-date, pupils have access to a wide range of visual materials, including pictures, artefacts, maps and data. Displays are used to enhance teaching and learning;
7. ICT is being used to make geography teaching and learning more visual and deeper, to provide access to a wide range of up to date and topical resources, including information from a variety of sources; pupils are given the opportunity to communicate electronically;
8. assessment for learning is on-going in the classroom and builds pupils' self knowledge of their own learning and understanding of how to get better in geography; this includes teachers modeling examples of work, revisiting questions to analyse performance, redrafting answers to improve them, deploying ladders of progression to help pupils understand how to make their work better;
9. fieldwork and direct experience beyond the classroom include a rich array of opportunities to enhance classroom teaching and to help pupils to make sense of the world around them: the curriculum builds on and extends pupils' own experiences of the world;
10. geography provides pupils with opportunities to develop and apply basic skills in a real context especially those of literacy (in all its guises), numeracy and ICT, for the mutual benefit of geography and the basic skills;
11. links with other areas of the curriculum are sought and exploited;
12. teaching and learning is visual, challenging, builds pupils' sense of place, encourages creativity to make sense of geographical ideas, supports pupils to understand differences and creates interested learners who ask questions about the world around them.
Last Modified:
16/07/2008 16:06:48
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