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GTE January 2014: University of Winchester

• How new will the 2014 National Curriculum be at Key Stage 3?

Dr Melanie Norman:

PGCE Secondary Programme Leader

PGCE Geography Subject Route Leader

School of Education, University of Brighton, FALMER, BN1 9PH

m.j.norman@brighton.ac.uk

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2007 GNC Revisions

• GTE 2009: How new is the new Key Stage 3 Curriculum?

• The four schools in which I undertook my research believed their existing curriculum at key stage 3 met the new requirements and envisaged little change.

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Expert Panel Questionnaire Sept. 2013

• What do schools need most help with in revising their KS3?

• PGCE’s tasked with finding out from their their departments:

- what plans are afoot for change?

- what areas of the curriculum will they need most help with?

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• “One cannot help but contrast the way in which each (National Curriculum) revision has been welcomed-as heralding a new freedom-with the way in which it has been characterized later as being overly prescriptive”.

(Kinder, A. Teaching Geography 38, 3, p99)

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A ‘snapshot’

• Presentation based only on responses from partner schools where my PGs are on placement.

• PGCE perceptions of the new curriculum and how their placement schools are approaching change, or otherwise.

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Is this a National Curriculum?

• ‘I wonder how many people fully grasp how non-national this curriculum is?’.

(Rosen, M 2.4.13, Guardian Education)

• The curriculum is for England only and is not compulsory for free schools, academies or independent schools.

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Geography Expert Advisory Group

• Anticipated challenges for teachers

• Areas requiring additional resourcing (publications)

• Areas requiring additional resourcing (training)

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RESULTS• Evident misunderstandings;

Section 1,Points 12, 13, 15,16.

Are these addressed in the materials which have been put on the GA website?

Are people using the GA website to inform departmental discussions?

• Concerns about assessment; point 6

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Quote from HoD whose school has the SGQM

• I’ve just stuck a bit of China and Africa into what I’ve already got, to cover the new KS3. We’re not doing Russia as its not relevant. I’ve stuck a bit more place in and bit more skills.

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Another HoD with SGQM

Opportunities:

•Encouragement to re-develop outdated lessons;

•Increased scope for new topics;

•Increased inclusion of GIS and fieldwork;

•Development of a ‘skills grid’;•Liaison with other departments (x-curric resources; avoid repetition)

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Challenges:

• Finding resources e.g. Russia, The Middle East, glaciation, soils;

• Ensuring effective transition between Key Stages;• Increasing access for all pupils for fieldwork; • Ensuring effective schemes of work can be

produced in time for the next academic year

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PGCE student perspectives

• --- it is disappointing to see the subject being washed away through school policy and weak whole-school planning. (Claire, Steph, Catherine)

• I would be tempted to feel relieved by the style of the new curriculum and embrace the opportunity to have greater involvement and control over what I was teaching. I feel it is an exciting time for geography to develop and reassert itself as a relevant and beneficial qualification (Chloe)

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PGCE student perspectives

• I found the most useful part of the session to be the identification of schools’ current strengths with regards to the new geography curriculum and the challenges associated with its implementation. Many of these were similar between schools in Brighton and Hove and I therefore expect that the same sorts of strengths and challenges would be raised by many schools in the UK.

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PGCE Student Perspectives

• Achieving consistency in its interpretation between schools is compounded by the abolition of level descriptors. Finding new ways of measuring students’ progress and attainment which are comparable between schools is another huge challenge. (Juli)

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In summary

• Concerns at the spectrum from ‘do nothing’ to a ‘complete re-write’.

• Concerns that schools that ‘don’t have to’ won’t take any notice until the new GCSE/A level syllabuses are revealed.

• Concerns about access to resources of all types to support the ‘new’ topics.

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• Brighton & Hove Schools network for all subjects-concerted effort for schools to support each other in planning for the new National Curriculum

• No such network evident in East or West Sussex-vast areas-huge number of schools

• Lack of funded support (made available during the last revision). Schools will look to Professional Associations for support.

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• How new will the new National Curriculum be at Key Stage 3?

• Not very according to my ‘snapshot’.

• Increasing number of academies mean fewer and fewer schools following GNC.

• A good or bad situation for the subject?

• The integrity of the subject must be maintained.

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Shattering the passion

I really miss the work we did at uni, all I seem to have to do now I’m a ‘real teacher’ is fill in endless forms regarding assessment data for SMT! (Lucy)