Schools are facing complex challenges in delivering high quality geography fieldwork. The Ofsted 2023 subject review – which highlighted real weaknesses in national provision – has brought fieldwork into the eyeline of school leaders.
In a recent webinar, Kate Fritter, Geography Mastery colleague at Ark Curriculum Plus, and Ruth Kerr, Head of KS3 Geography at Ark Pioneer Academy in High Barnet, shared how Geography Mastery can support the challenges.
The landscape is complex, with a lack of teacher confidence, a demanding national curriculum, unique student needs and logistical challenges all playing a part.
There are especially high percentages of early career teachers and non-specialists teaching KS3 geography, meaning that there's often low confidence in planning and managing fieldwork. The Ofsted report pointed out that a lack of fieldwork CPD is one of the key reasons why many teachers don’t have the expertise and confidence to plan and lead it.
We know that school priorities around KS4 and KS5 mean that less attention is given to ensuring that fieldwork actually happens at KS3, and because the national curriculum is busy it can be hard to meet all the requirements. Fieldwork often drops off the list.
Fieldwork provision was already insufficient in many schools before the pandemic, but Covid has made it even more difficult. In addition, the increased focus on SEND and ensuring the whole curriculum – including fieldwork – is accessible to all students requires really careful planning.
These challenges are on top of logistical factors like staffing and budgets. The result? Fieldwork is often delivered poorly or not at all. National curriculum requirements to teach fieldwork at KS3 are not fulfilled and in many cases, pupils are not prepared for KS4 and KS5.
Schools that use Geography Mastery say that they carry out more fieldwork now than they did before, and with greater teacher confidence.
Geography Mastery provides step-by-step fieldwork guidance to give teachers of all levels of experience the skills and confidence to deliver great fieldwork.
Exemplars and exposition show teachers what to say and what their classes should be aiming for, and the materials are designed for use off-site or on the school grounds, depending on your needs.
The programme integrates multiple fieldwork opportunities, above and beyond national curriculum requirements.
Fieldwork becomes more complex throughout the course, incorporating virtual fieldwork techniques, GIS, onsite data gathering, and sophisticated write-ups.
For example:
In this fieldwork, students devise an interview to gather qualitative data from a family member to investigate that person's personal geography. Pupils present the data using an annotated UK, Europe or global map.
“I think one of the benefits of using Geography Mastery is that fieldwork is incorporated right at the beginning of Year 7,” said Ruth Kerr, Head of KS3 Geography
She described the first piece of fieldwork as a celebration of everything students have learned before Year 7, “a real opportunity for students to create such a special piece of work. It allows them to connect their heritage, their culture into what we are learning in school. I think that link between curriculum and their own personal history is invaluable. It really gets a good buy in with geography straightaway.”
Ruth went on to highlight the work of a student that finds school incredibly challenging. Through the personal geography project, she found out about his passion for rugby.
“I would say now genuinely geography is one of the few subjects in which this student feels success, all because creating this personal geography project has allowed me to connect with him in a different way … it's also connected something that he's super passionate about with our curriculum.”
Geography Mastery provides the resources that teachers need to implement fieldwork successfully, including interview questions, interview sheets, and student self-assessment criteria.
“The resources which Geography Mastery provide us with are exceptionally useful. It saves us huge amounts of time and preparation, which we know is one of the challenges of fieldwork, and it only requires really minor adjustments to suit our own personal context.”
In Year 7 Unit 4, students are introduced to some key global physical processes at a basic level (e.g. water cycle). This unit explores ecosystems and biomes, the relationship between latitude and biome formation and we look at the deciduous forest biome in some depth.
“This is a more complex piece of fieldwork and it's one where we take students outside of the classroom,” Ruth explained. Students gather data either in a local woodland or in the school grounds, drawing on knowledge from lessons 1 to 7.
“Going outside of the classroom is a huge challenge regardless of if you're going on the playground, on the field or into your local area, however the Geography Mastery resources really do empower educators. They make the whole process of planning and facilitating fieldwork much easier.”
Geography Mastery provides exposition for teachers and exemplars to help them define their expectations and run the fieldwork confidently. Students then use their data in an end-of-unit essay.
“You can select the techniques that best fit to you and your context,” Ruth advised. “We use these resources in department meeting time. … We rehearsed and practised how we were going to deliver this fieldwork.”
“We have ECTs now who never got to do fieldwork training because they trained during Covid. The first time they do fieldwork will be with their classes so having an example of what you could say is exceptionally important.”
To look at the exposition and exemplar resource available for this fieldwork, plus samples of other Geography Mastery resources, get free access to the programme preview.
Geography Mastery can empower schools to deliver more fieldwork, with greater teacher confidence.
Book a call to speak to a member of the team directly about how Geography Mastery could support you and your school.
