For the last 15 years, Helen Young has been producing a Christmas / End of year Quiz.
And this year's quiz has now been released... and is available to download free of charge...
Thanks very much as always to Helen for providing me with the final lesson of the calendar year...
I've made a thing with Google's Gemini Storybook maker.
This was inspired by some work shared by languages consultant Joe Dale, who I have known for many years.
Apologies for the energy and water wasted to create it. It wasn't worth it...
The idea was that this would be an introduction for Year 7's unit on 'Geographies of Home' and the students would be asked to critique the narrative that Gemini chose to include. The prompt included the idea that the students common home would be the Earth but they would also
If you follow the link above you will see some fairly obvious 'issues' I hope....
For me, this is yet another example of the problems with educators choosing to use AI to create resources:
- it's lazy
- it produces an output that is generic in style and look
- it's not accurate
A phrase I've heard before is that AI is "confidently wrong". Many more explorations to come over the next few years with the EMOGI project.
I've been sharing my blogs over on my Substack Newsletter. This comes out weekly and provides an update on blog posts, projects, news, books, images and events linked to geography.
Around this time, it is worth keeping an eye on the Marine Traffic website. This shows the movement of shipping using the AIS trackers which vessels have to have switched on to plot their position.
Zoom down to the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula and you will see them start to come to life as the austral summer arrives, pack ice melts and the research vessels and tourist ships start to head south. You may also see trawlers out to catch krill, and other vessels.
See what you can spot.
There were quite a few Viking Cruise Line ships there earlier, and the BAS research vessel Sir David Attenborough.
We finally have the outcome of the Curriculum and Assessment Review with the publication of the final report today. Many thousands of educators have been waiting for months.
In July 2024, the government commissioned Professor Becky Francis CBE to convene and chair a panel of experts to conduct the Curriculum and Assessment Review.The report has taken on board the many consultation responses from individuals and organisations.
These are available in a summary document which is separate to the main final report - this is also worth looking at.
The RGS's original response to the call for consultation is here. It was referenced in the final report, along with the GA's, and reports from UCL's Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education.
The report has been almost a year in the making, and runs to 197 pages.
The recommendations for Geography are as follows:
We recommend that the Government:
Makes minor refinements to the Geography Programmes of Study and GCSE subject content to respond to the issues identified, including by:
• Refining content to support progression better to further study, deepen children and young people’s understanding of key geographical concepts, make content more relevant and inclusive, and remove unnecessary repetition across topics.
• Embedding disciplinary knowledge more explicitly at Key Stage 3, such as geographical enquiry, spatial reasoning, use of digital tools, human geography and use of evidence, to ensure all children and young people have access to high-quality geographical education.
• Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for fieldwork to demonstrate its role more effectively in supporting content and the developing of disciplinary knowledge, ensuring changes remain proportionate and inclusive.
Embeds climate change and sustainability more explicitly across different key stages, including across the physical geography, geographical applications and human geography sections of the curriculum, ensuring early, coherent, and more detailed engagement with climate education. This should be done without risking curriculum overload.
There is also an element of media literacy here for climate change education in particular, where there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation. There is a need for pupils to be aware of AI and its value and issues.
There is also mention of the need for diversity and for all students to "see themselves in the curriculum" - something which I was particularly keen to see.
And these will ultimately form part of changes to the national curriculum (will this be compulsory for all schools?) and GCSE subject criteria. These will be consulted on again and no changes will happen before 2028 in any case.
On the purpose of the review itself:
National curriculum content must be kept up to date, fit for purpose and reflective of the needs of wider society. Periodic holistic reviews of the national curriculum are therefore essential for ensuring these aims are achieved, as well as for maintaining overall curriculum coherence. Reviews are also a valuable mechanism for addressing curriculum shape in the round. Reviews can evaluate whether the breadth and depth of different subjects and their content remains appropriate, as well as determining the overarching aims of schooling and the time needed for the different activities required to meet these aims. Reviews can also address the build-up of content in particular areas to ensure that the curriculum remains deliverable for teachers and ambitious for students.
The Oak National Academy is also mentioned as being further involved in the development of curriculum materials which are up to date.
We agree with the Review that the national curriculum and the resources that support it, should reflect our modern society and diverse communities. Our aim is for the curriculum to be both a mirror, in which every child can see themselves and their communities reflected, and a window through which every child is connected to the world beyond their existing horizons and perspectives
"We will follow the curriculum principles of coherence, subject mastery and depth – making sure that programmes of study and subject content are grounded in relevant and important knowledge and disciplinary skills."
There will also be a fully digital and easily navigable version of the national curriculum - we will create a rich, connected online version of the curriculum which visually represents the links within and between subject areas and gives connections to prior learning, helping teachers to contextualise learning across traditional subject boundaries in the classroom.
As the Review recommends, we intend to retain a single national curriculum which serves as a core entitlement which every pupil can access. We are legislating through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill so that academies will be required to teach the refreshed national curriculum alongside maintained schools. This will ensure that parents and carers have certainty over the core concepts in their child’s education and that there is a floor beneath which this cannot slip. The national curriculum is not the entire curriculum but an underpinning of what every child is entitled to know, which schools build on locally. Schools will continue to remain responsible for deciding how their school curriculum brings those core concepts to life in their choices of historical events, physical and human geography, and novels, for example. This will allow them to create dynamic learning environments where pupils can flourish.
"Music excites when it is performed" - Benjamin Britten
Mukuru Stoves is a company that is based in Ghana and is an excellent story of African innovation. It was founded by a woman called Charlot Magayi.
This is an inspiring story of resilience and perseverence.
This Conversation piece talks about the lack of clean fuels for the clean energy transition.
The stoves were one of the winners of the Earthshot Prize in 2022.
I have been using these stoves as an example of hopeful geographies. One woman has changed the lives of millions already through the sales of her stoves as well as the jobs created in manufacturing and selling the stoves and their fuel, which is made from agricultural waste in one of the designs.
Check out the website and the story.
Here's a worksheet that I used with Year 8 to help them interrogate the story.
Mukuru Clean Stoves by Alan Parkinson
Watch the video here too
My author copy has just arrived.
It's an anthology book, pulled together by Jennifer Monk and Catherine Owen. It features a whole range of people writing about different aspects of the subject.
Introduction – why this, why now?
This year, the Education team at the RGS have been more closely connected with the production of the supplement: the new Gatsby Benchmarks are a real focus for their work.
Take a look online here if you aren't a subscriber to the physical edition of the magazine.
This is a project which I worked on through 2024 and into 2025.
It's finally out there for you to download and play.
And we can finally share it as it's had the official Government Press Release today!!
CoastCraft places the player in the role of managing the coast and making decisions for the needs of the community and the environment. The player can explore and visualise the future impacts of the decisions made and evaluate varying approaches to managing the coast.It was great to work with Tom Collins and colleagues from the Environment Agency. I learned a great deal from the coastal experts that were also involved in the project.
This is a very popular competition and it has now reopened for entries for 2025.
It's organised by the UK Polar Network and run by Fiona Sheriff and Rose Haycock this year.
Due to capacity with the scientists who take the flags south, only 350 schools can sign up this year.
You will need to register promptly if you want to take part.
Two flags per school will travel to the continent and receive a photo and certificate to prove they got there.
Year 8 at my school will have the chance to submit a flag for judging.
It's time to sign up to take part in the British Antarctic Survey's 'Ticket to Antarctica' project.
We will be following with Year 8.
Roblox is a very popular game. For several years, Helen Young has been working with the BBC and several companies to produce some immersive geographical experiences based on the game engine to add to BBC Bitesize's offerings for students.
