Enhancing Geography Achievement through Fieldwork, Mapwork, Critical Thinking, and ICT

1. PGQMA2: Skills Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, mapwork, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography.

2. PGQM A2 “I get the train to town from this station!” – Year 1 Pupil For younger children fieldwork begins in their school grounds investigating changes that are taking place and how these will enhance an area. Walks of the local area soon follow so pupils build up a sense of their schools location.

3. PGQM A2 “We have been using the Ipads and atlases to find out the position of Llandudno in Wales. We are going there for our geography trip soon!” Year 5 pupil Pupils regularly use ICT to enquire about where places are and to communicate findings. Pupils took cameras with them to Llandudno so they could capture the landscape during their trip. Year 5 pupil showing how high up she is!

4. A2 Skills (GLP A2)Key indicator: Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, map work, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography. Year 6 assessing the local environment for the local area study. Pupils identified improvements they would like to see, then wrote to the local councillor. Year 6 children using ipads to research the world’s different mountain ranges. PGQM Bronze Award - Burlington Junior School

5. A2 Skills (GLP A2)Key indicator: Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, map work, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography. The answer above says: Mr Salt is wrong because Australia produces zero cocoa beans and parts of it are hot and dry. In Nigeria and Ghana is it hot and very rainy, and they produce lots and lots of cocoa beans. Children in Year 4 are given hypotheses to investigate using climate data. Cocoa beans grow near the equator, does that mean countries near the equator have a hot and dry climate? Find out... PGQM Bronze Award - Burlington Junior School

6. Supporting Achievement (cont.) The pupil was able to use critical thinking to select key features for their own settlement and explain their reasons (A1, A2). The pupil demonstrates an understanding of the key features of a map, using labels and a key to explain their work (A2). PGQM 2014 - Cathedral Primary School

7. Supporting Achievement (cont.) Year 6 Unit of Work: India Pupils are developing their understanding of a different locality at an age-appropriate level (A1). The pupil demonstrates the ability to make robust comparisons between two localities, showing a good level of critical thinking (A2). Pupils are able to self-assess their learning to a high standard, ensuring they have confidence in their progress and ability to move on to the next stage of learning. The pupil has created a Level 6 check list against which to assess her own learning (A3). PGQM 2014 - Cathedral Primary School

8. Supporting Achievement (cont.) Year 6 Unit of Work: India The Year 6 Teacher has created a dialogue with the pupils through marking, enabling the pupils to develop their knowledge and skills, and move on to the next stage of learning successfully. As a result of this marking dialogue the pupil went on to compare verbally to the Class Teacher the lives of least fortunate citizens in both London and Delhi (A1, A2, A3). The pupil commented that In both cities there are some people who don’t have enough to eat. We could help them by giving to charities or writing to the government. PGQM 2014 - Cathedral Primary School

9. A2: Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, mapwork, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography ICT is used across the school in a variety of ways to enhance children’s geographical enquiry and skills. ICT is effectively used in Year 2 during ‘Italian Day’ to research Italy. Children utilised applications such as Google Earth and Google Maps to locate Italy. Children successfully used search engines to find key information about Italy. They created i-books to clearly present their findings.

10. Children’s map skills progress throughout the school. Children in the Reception class studied their local area. They then drew a map of the key features of the foundation area.

11. Whilst looking their local area Year 2 children map out the school and any other landmark features of Bransholme they know.

12. Year 4 children progress to drawing key surrounding roads they are aware of in the area.

13. Year 5 Year 5 children develop their mapping skills even further to look at the wider community, not just that which surrounds our school or their house.

14. Year 6 widen their geographical mapping skills to use navigational skills with their map work.

15. Achievement: A2: Skills What is Geography like in our school? Reception: London ICT / Display Children programmed the Bee-bots to travel around their models of Exminster. This show cross curricular links and ICT. Year 6 : Natural Disasters projects Skills : Mapwork and ICT Laptops were used to research and present their learning. This shows Independent choice and high expectations. Atlases have been chosen to be used to extract information needed. Tablets – mapping software available in all classrooms via laptops or tablets.

16. GLP A2 Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, mapwork, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography On their visit to Global Renewables in Leyland, Year 5 children are using ICT to control vehicles and move them around a map. They are using directional language to travel from place to place, discussing their journey with geographical vocabulary. If we need to arrive on the orange rectangle, I need to use the compass to make sure I tell the girls the right directions from where they are sitting. They have a different viewpoint to me. A Year 2 using the ipod to scan a QR code as part of a superhero quest.

17. At the beginning of the staff meeting, we met all staff in the staff room and gave each year group an ipod. We then sent them off to follow the instructions and use a variety of fieldwork skills to get to the ‘secret’ main meeting place. In case of emergency, they were given an envelope of the QR messages printed out. Staff had to record sounds and take photographs as part of their fieldwork.

18. GLP T1 Teaching is underpinned by good subject knowledge. The teaching of core geographical knowledge underpins children’s learning about the world. I have to go north up the corridor, then turn east and the next clue is on the third door. Staff discussed finding fieldwork skills a tricky area to teach and assess. Following this, the geography team provided some training for staff on using ipads to teach fieldwork skills on the school premises by setting up QR codes. Within the following months, Year 2 used the ipods to participate in a superhero quest and Year 3 went on a pirate treasure hunt using the skills they had learned in the staff training.. As part of their superhero topic, the year 2 teachers sent the children on a superhero quest around school. The children scanned QR codes and had to follow the directions from the superheroes to complete the quest. They had to follow compass directions to find the next clue.

19. GLP T2 Teachers apply their skills through effective pedagogy and ‘curriculum – making’ to provide relevant and effective content. In recent years, to help develop our children’s global awareness, we have had a sister school in South Africa and our previous year 2 classes did a topic on South Africa linked to this. The children received letters from the children in the school in South Africa and saw photos of the classrooms the children were working in. The younger children were surprised at the differences between their school building and ours, which had recently undergone a huge renovation and received new furniture. The children decided that they would like to share some of their good fortune with the children in our sister school. They asked if some of our old equipment that was being replaced as part of the new build could be sent out to the children as they were not lucky enough to have as many resources as we have.

20. The children continued to discuss their “new friends” and wanted to help them further. They decided to put on a performance for their parents and try to raise some money to send out to South Africa. They learned to sing in Zulu, wrote their own traditional African tales and learned a South African dance. They also made artefacts to sell before the performance. With the money they raised, the children selected items they thought the children in our sister school would appreciate and posted them out. A large package containing drawing equipment, books, posters and games was sent to the school in South Africa, along with a letter from the children. They were incredibly proud of the money they raised.

21. Year 5 visited a local church as part of their RE topic. On the way, they noted many things about their local environment that they were unhappy with, for example, graffiti and litter. As part of a literacy topic on letter writing, they wrote a letter of complaint to the local council explaining their findings and making suggestions for ways they though the local environment could be improved. I can’t understand how anyone thinks that is an ok thing to do. It looks awful. Do you think people would put rubbish in the bin of there were more bins around?

22. Achievement: A2: Skills Year 2 : Exminster field work Fieldwork Enquiry /ICT/Geographical language Children investigated ‘What jobs do people do in Exminster?’ They then were able to use Digimaps program to find their route, features they know and locate the places people worked. This shows enquiry, field work and ICT map skills. Children in every year group use Google maps or Digimaps. Atlas / Map Work Carefully chosen three differentiated levels of Atlas throughout the school. Year 1 researching their special places and Year 4 choosing contrasting coastal and urban holiday locations for project.

23. Achievement A2 The world around us. Recognising features of our own environment. Opening up the world for children. How we sustain the environment Ideas generated from staff meeting when asked. What is Geography? Skills – map reading and investigation. Knowledge and understanding of the world. Understanding and appreciation of global community and our impact. Location of continents and countries.

24. A2 Skills (GLP A2)Key indicator: Geographical enquiry and skills: fieldwork, mapwork, critical thinking and the use of ICT; are used to support achievement in geography • I believe we are very strong in our teaching and use of geographical enquiry and skills. Year R have fabulous opportunities to learn about the world through play and investigation, as shown especially in their weather work. (See attached Weekly Plan for Year R showing weather investigating skills being taught and reinforced at a young age) • Year 1 have trips to Bearsted Green and BedgeburyPinetum and carry out an investigation on the traffic outside school. Year 2 go to the local Woodland Trust and carry out an enquiry investigation based around whether houses should be built on some of the land. Both year groups link local map work to these trips by creating maps of the route walked. Mapwork shows a clear progression through the school and ICT is used in all lessons. The children love being out of the classroom on even a short trip around the grounds and the quality of follow up work demonstrates the value of this. Year 2 are trying to start every topic by using a part of the school grounds eg we looked at the layers in a small woodland area in the grounds before studying rainforests, so that we could compare woodlands around the world. • See following slides about use of ICT in geography • See evidence in B2 about Geographical enquiry work, skills and progression. A pupil’s dad came to talk to us about his job piloting boats up the Thames Estuary. He left us a chart of the area which the children loved to look at and talk about.

25. Use of ICTAs a school, we are very strong on the use of ICT. Every class has an interactive whiteboard which is used for almost all lessons. We also use them to share lesson objectives, success criteria and geographical vocabulary. Children then have the opportunity to work on these and on individual computers during group work, to do research, practice skills, create posters etc. Rainforests are located here Using the interactive whiteboard to locate rainforests We are drawing a picture of a hot country – there is a palm tree and a sun (Year R) Sharing learning objectives and geographical vocabulary on the interactive whiteboard Using the visualiser so that the whole class can share one book