Wishing all those with Year 11 geography cohorts the very best for tomorrow’s AQA GCSE Paper 2 exam. I hope students get the chance to show everything they’ve worked so hard to learn. (particular good luck wishes to the fab #astreageographycommunity - good luck!) @astreacademies #geography #geographyteacher #GCSE #AQAGeography @AQA
Kat’s new blog is an important read for both subject and senior leaders. If QA is going to drive meaningful improvement, it has to be built around subject expertise, not simply compliance. Routines being in place is not a proxy for curriculum quality or student learning. Subject leaders need to sit at the heart of QA because they are best placed to judge the quality of curriculum enactment: what excellence looks like in their subject, how well the curriculum is being taught, and whether students are learning what was intended. The strongest QA does not remove accountability but roots it in subject expertise, careful use of evidence, and a relentless focus on improving what students are taught and come to understand. #curriculum #subjectleadership #QualityAssurance
#EducationLeadership
Teach geography the way it was meant to be experienced.
Fieldwork Through Enquiry is now 20% off for all with code NFF26.
Fieldwork is to geography what books are to English.
Plan your #NFF26 curriculum here: https://t.co/RvvEIulaUY
Astrea Academy Woodfields – Final Visit Day
Visit Astrea Academy Woodfields in Doncaster on Thursday 9 July from 7:30am–12:30pm.
Meet staff and students and see the school community in action.
https://t.co/pSvt9TKfAZ
Independent reading can have a huge impact on:
→ vocabulary
→ writing
→ comprehension
→ academic success 📚
This course explores how schools can build stronger reading habits and reading cultures.
https://t.co/rNqfMcZ0cO
This new post from Alex really resonates, particularly in how it frames literacy as central to KS3 curriculum success. In my previous role, developing a new common curriculum, literacy was a key part of the design thinking, ensuring frequent access to high-quality texts, careful selection of vocabulary to teach, consolidate and revisit, explicit attention to etymology and meaning in context, and regular practice in constructing explanations and arguments using structures such as “because, but, so”. What Alex captures here is that literacy is not an add-on to curriculum. It is how students access the curriculum. If KS3 is to be more than a “squeezed middle”, reading, vocabulary, writing and academic talk need to be designed into the curriculum from the outset. #literacy #geographyteacher #teacher #edchat #teacher #curriculumdesign
💡 NEW POST 💡
“Literacy and Key Stage 3 Success’
“Without secure literacy foundations, academic success is denied long before GCSE examinations or intensive interventions begin.”
https://t.co/GgKqwZmkdU
Knowledge-rich curriculum isn’t about knowing and teaching more “stuff”.
It is about developing more meaningful, coherent, and interconnected knowledge in our students long-term memory. The kind of knowledge necessary for critical and creative thinking.
Knowledge builds. Vocabulary recurs. Concepts connect. Questions interweave. Yesterday supports today, and today prepares students for tomorrow and beyond.
In my latest post, I explore the difference between a knowledge-rich and knowledge-poor curriculum design through the redesign of my Africa unit using invaluable insights from Developing Curriculum for Deep Thinking: The Knowledge Revival.
Only a few days until the official start of the National Festival of Fieldwork!
If you have been participating with your students so far, don't forget to share the photos with us, and if you still have it in the schedule, do make use of the GA's extensive bank of fieldwork ideas.
Go outside this June!
#NFF26
An ambitious KS3 curriculum matters in its own right, building the secure knowledge, conceptual understanding and disciplinary thinking students need to flourish as geographers. It also means they are better placed at KS4 to deepen their understanding, apply knowledge with confidence, and continue developing their ability to think like geographers. #KS3 #edchat Really looking forward to @MaryMyatt new book - KS3 - The Ambitious Years
https://t.co/1yZkRdhYBI
My quarterly subject-knowledge update on all things Arctic geography: the free online magazine from @WWF_Arctic 🌎❄️🦭
A recommended read for all geography teachers!
💡 ‘SHARE to support struggling readers and writers’ 💡
“How do we enact something that is potentially fuzzy like 'scaffolding' or 'high expectations'? Strategies need to be distilled, concrete and practical, and we need to name them.”
https://t.co/wRA2BIlhaU
The GA's Subject Knowledge Scholar programme is now open to ITE and Pre-ITE applicants for the 2026 cohort.
The deadline to apply for the programme is 31 May but what exactly do you get when you do so?
Please find more information below and with this link: https://t.co/TwuLvSOM1n