1

Welcome to the new rebranded Notes and Queries, the annual newsletter of the GA

Independent Schools Special Interest Group. These are challenging times for Geogra-

phy teachers; the goalposts are constantly moving in terms of what we teach and how

we teach it. Hardly a week goes by without a scientific report published by academ-

ics or a learned society on the impacts of climate change, while new directives seem

to be coming from the desk of the Secretary of State with the same regularity.

The GA has made an excellent case for the continued inclusion of Geography in the

National Curriculum and with Geography included as one of the subjects in the so-

called English Baccalaureate that is used as a measure of success at GCSE, our posi-

tion has never been stronger. It is a subject, however, that is constantly changing and

CPD is possibly more relevant in Geography than any other school subject.

On a personal note, most of my annual CPD comes via the GA annual conference .

This year, president Bob Digby has chosen ‘Looking to the Future’ as his theme; a

theme that this newsletter will also echo. The excellent programme on offer at con-

ference will reflect this in three key ways: how geographers see the future of the hu-

man and natural world, how the classroom of the future might approach ways of

learning, and how new technologies can be used in geography teaching and learning.

For this newsletter, we have invited members of the GA ISSIG and various other GA

members working in a variety of institutions to contribute articles relating to these

three key ways.

In this edition of Notes and Queries, there are a number of articles from a variety of

different contributors. Our new CEO Alan Kinder has contributed a piece on the

challenges facing the independent sector in a period of rapid change, while Alan

Parkinson looks at the use of Apps in the Geography classroom. Continuing on the

theme of technology, Janet Speake looks at the use of SatNavs while Richard Bustin

(a member of the GA ISSIG) provides a contemporary take of how Geographers look

at Urban areas. There are also three articles on Fieldwork: Rob Lucas, CEO of the

Field Studies Council gives us his take on the Future of Fielwork, Nik Miller (also a

member of the GA ISSIG) looks at the Common Entrance project and my colleague

Steve Fox writes about his experiences taking a group of senior pupils to Malawi last

summer and carrying out fieldwork on water supplies.

This newsletter will also published electronically as a PDF as well as a paper version.

Looking to the future, it may well be the only medium it is published in. Subsequent

electronic versions will include more articles than the paper version and will be avail-

able on the GA website and from a QR code published in

the newsletter.

Using a suitable QR Code reader app on your smart de-

vice, this QR code will take you to the GA ISSIG page on

the GA website.

Have a good conference,

Rob Morris

Editorial: Looking to the FutureEditorial: Looking to the Future

Notes and QueriesNotes and Queries The Newsletter of the Geographical Association Independent Schools Special Interest Group

Contents:

Looking to the Future 2

Urban Geography 4

Spread a little

‘App’iness...

8

Fieldwork in Malawi 14

The Future of Fieldwork 18

Sat Navs 20

Fieldwork in Prep Schools 22

New GA Chief Executive

Alan Kinder writes about

the challenges facing the

Independent Sector on

page 2

2

Teachers of geography are well versed in thinking and teaching about the future. We’re

one of the few subjects that allow students to think critically and creatively about what

their world might or indeed should look like when they become adults (and parents, and

grandparents...).

But what does the future hold for teachers of geography? This is a particularly challeng-

ing question, as we are currently faced with curriculum and wider educational changes on

an almost unprecedented scale. Who can blame those teachers or schools who feel more

than a little overwhelmed by the pace of reform?

So let’s bring some of our skills as geographers to bear on this challenge. Firstly, a sum-

mary of the key changes across the age range:

1. The statutory national curriculum for geography KS1-3 is undergoing a process of

reform and public consultation (www.dfe.gov.uk). Geography has, thanks to the

efforts of the entire subject community, made a successful case for its explicit in-

clusion in each key stage. But this is a new approach to writing a national curricu-

lum - a concise document which sets out clearly ‘the knowledge and understanding

that all children should be expected to acquire in the course of their schooling'.

Place knowledge, understanding geographical processes and some technical

‘procedures’ (such as map skills) are all emphasised within the draft, but note that

the ‘core’ curriculum is not intended to be all that students are taught. The final

Orders are due to be published by September 2013, and to be applied to all English

maintained schools from September 2014, although the national curriculum also

tends to influence non-maintained schools, and this is even more likely to be the

case in the future (see below).

2. Qualifications for 14-16 year olds are also undergoing reform. Maintained schools

(in England) are already subject to the so-called English Baccalaureate perform-

ance measure (the percentage of students gaining grades A*-C GCSE in EBacc

subjects, such as geography). More radical proposals were recently brought for-

ward and consulted upon. The idea of ‘English Baccalaureate Certificates’ (EBCs)

received a full and detailed response from the GA in 2012

(www.geography.org.uk/aboutus/papersandresponses/). In this, we made clear that

the GA supports the government’s desire to raise standards but argued that without

significant support, a new qualification alone was unlikely to achieve this aim. The

Association also made the case for: rewarding every candidate with a precise and

widely-understood measure of their achievement; acknowledging fieldwork as an

essential element of geographical education; and introducing new qualifications

only after a successful pilot phase involving schools and teachers. It was therefore

gratifying to discover that many of the GA’s arguments had been accepted in the

February announcement by the Secretary of State (www.geography.org.uk/news/

ks4reformupdate/). Instead of EBCs, reformed GCSEs will be introduced by 2015

and geography will be offered by several awarding body.

3. Geography A levels are also being reformed at present (www.ofqual.gov.uk) and

the changes mirror recent reforms to GCSE – with moves towards linear qualifica-

tions, fewer examination retakes and a more rigorous approach by the regulator

towards ensuring curriculum breadth, by encouraging wider-ranging examinations

at the end of the course, as well as ‘stand alone’ AS levels. The recent announce-

ment by the Secretary of State means we can expect new A level courses by 2015.

Alan Kinder has been

Chief Executive Officer

of the GA since last Sep-

tember. In this article, he

talks about the chal-

lenges facing the Inde-

pendent sector as a re-

sult of recent announce-

ments about the National

Curriculum and GCSE

Photo © The GA

Looking to the future—Alan Kinder

“There are wider

changes in education,

technology and

society which will

impact upon us as

teachers of

geography”

3

Drawing these threads together, we can begin to think about what they are likely to mean for teachers of

geography. In key stages 1-3, a slimmed-down curriculum affords greater freedom in some respects, be-

cause it encourages the teacher (and/or school) to identify local preferences, priorities and opportunities

with which to extend the essential core. However, the requirement to ensure that all students acquire core

knowledge and understanding may prove a challenge for some, particularly in relation to place knowledge

and physical processes. Another task for teachers will be to create detailed plans and assessments from a

‘skeletal’ curriculum document. Here, it is likely that more support for what we call ‘curriculum-making’

will be needed than previously – from other teachers and from organisations such as the GA.

In KS4, the revised subject criteria for geography will ensure that all GCSEs cover a curriculum core. For

example, a detailed study of the UK could become a feature of every GCSE specification. Terminal exami-

nations at 16 years would then be an important influence on the entire 11-16 geography curriculum, includ-

ing in schools not subject to statutory Orders at KS3. The challenge here will be for teachers to sustain

their creativity and avoid an incessant teaching to the test. This will be important to maintain the engage-

ment of students who have been persuaded to choose geography by schools responding to the EBacc per-

formance measure: recent sharp rises mean that around 36% of pupils now choose geography. As long as

it remains one of a select group of ‘core’ Baccalaureate subjects, we are likely to see further increases in

the proportion studying geography post-14. However, much might depend on the outcome of the current

consultation exercise on school accountability (http://www.education.gov.uk/aboutdfe/

departmentalinformation/consultations/a00221259/secondary-accountability). It is difficult to predict the

fate and likely status of alternative qualifications, such as the iGCSE, at this stage. For the schools and

awarding bodies involved, it will be crucial to identify the contribution these courses make to high stan-

dards within a ‘world class’ curriculum.

And of course there are wider changes in education, technology and society which will impact upon us as

teachers of geography in the foreseeable future. At the GA, we have recently been thinking about these in

order to begin the process of planning our strategy to 2020. For example, we recognise the growth in use of

social media amongst both teachers and students. These are increasingly used as a means of networking,

sharing ideas and establishing ‘identity’. Even the GA Chief Executive now has a Twitter account

(@GAChiefExec)! Combined with the use of mobile technology, social media are potentially powerful

tools for learning about the world, but much more needs to be done to identify an effective pedagogy for

this technology.

The national debate over the role of knowledge in the curriculum also serves to remind us of the challenge

of ‘Googleisation’ – the notion amongst some teachers and students that, since information is instantly

available through sophisticated search engines, the value of an individual possessing knowledge and en-

quiry skills is somehow diminished. More likely, the importance of being able to find, join up and make

sense of worthwhile facts and ideas is likely to increase as we become immersed in seemingly unlimited

quantities of information. In order to be successful in the future, students will need to critically analyse

sources of information in order to distinguish the relevant, significant and trustworthy from the trivial, in-

accurate or irrelevant. In so doing, they will both draw on and develop their own powerful knowledge base.

Geography teachers will therefore have an important role to play in enabling students to develop their geo-

graphical thinking, in order to become capable citizens of the future.

Finally, it might be worthwhile reminding ourselves of David Hicks’ argument that we should be consider-

ing not one but alternative futures. This applies very well to curriculum change: there is still a great deal to

play for and the outcomes in many respects are uncertain. The GA continues to engage in dialogue with the

DfE, Ofqual, awarding bodies and others in order to influence policy decisions. Our collective voice, repre-

senting around 6000 memberships, is far greater than the sum of its parts. Joining the GA, maintaining

membership and encouraging others to join are all practical ways of helping to shape the future of geogra-

phy.

Alan Kinder

4

Cities are amazing places- they are home to more than 50% of the world’s popula-

tion, they are the focus of national business and are hubs in global networks of in-

formation. They are locations of trenchant gang warfare, ghettos, terrorism, and

shootings. They are the site of financial dealings and global transactions of interna-

tional banks. They are sites of rampant consumerism. They usually contain the

richest people in a country as well as the poorest- abject poverty sitting next to opu-

lent wealth.

The global city of London was the initial setting for the riots of summer 2011, fol-

lowed by the inspiring Olympic games of 2012. The retail heart of UK cities has

been suffering not only from an invasion of multiple chain stores but more recently

from competition from online shopping. Many Arabic cities were the location of

the anti-government protests that led to a change of regime in the ‘Arab spring’ of

2011, and national protest and conflict often start and focus in the powerful core of

capital cities.

Yet how many teachers try to persuade our students that colouring in circles with

different colours and wedges is modern urban geography? The Burgess, Hoyt,

Mann, Harris and Ulmann and many more models came from a time in geogra-

phy’s past when the subject tried to explain the world through modelling, and a

positivist tradition. The Burgess model (below) was based on 1920s industrial Chi-

cago.

The model seems to have little to say about 21st Century London; it probably no

longer helps people to understand modern Chicago. The modelling approach was

popular in school geography when the national curriculum first set the content of

school geography at the end of the 1980s. Since then, urban geographers working

in universities throughout the world have found new ways to help students under-

stand the complexities of a city, such as humanist and postmodern approaches,

which do not seem to have found their way into schools. This has famously been

dubbed ‘the great divide’ between school and university geography. Yet the urban

land use models remain the stalwart of many school urban geography courses, and

Beyond Burgess: Reinvigorating the Teaching of Urban Geography—Richard Bustin

“We may need to

throw out crusty

old favourites … in

favour of stronger

links with other

subjects and

lessons that

challenge students

to make

geographical sense

of their own lives

and experiences”

A Different View

The Burgess land use model.

Richard Bustin is Head of

Geography at City of Lon-

don Freemen’s School

and a member of the GA

ISSIG.

5

exam boards at GCSE and A level seem reluctant to move beyond them. Ofsted has repeatedly found the teaching of

geography ‘boring’ and ‘irrelevant’ (see their reports in 2008 and 2010), and the subject often gets labelled with the

‘colouring in’ tag.

With so much going on in cities that frequently makes headlines, to get students to pour over outdated and irrelevant

models, or worse still to try to force the models to fit real modern cities, somehow does not do justice to the wonder

of modern urban areas. It is not the models per se that is the problem, a critical look at how geographers used to

study cities can be a useful introduction to a course, but in a 21st century classroom with the broadening of the na-

tional curriculum to enable teachers to innovate in the classroom once more, there are other ways to help students

engage with urban spaces.

These ideas are just a few ways in which teachers as the ‘curriculum makers’ might want to (re)design urban geogra-

phy courses. These are not original ideas and many can be found elsewhere and online, and credit has been given

where possible.

London Docklands Panorama ( © Richard Bustin)

Global cities

Cities are highly globalised; London probably has more economic links with New York than it does with other UK

cities. These links enable places around the world to become networked, and the cities themselves act as hubs within

that network. An interesting study can be made about which cities are ‘switched on’ and highly globalised and which

are somehow ‘switched off’ from global connectivity, and why. This links to global patterns of consumption and

trade. Simon Oakes has written useful material which can be of use here. ‘The earth at night’ photograph is a good

way to introduce this to students (search for it online), with pupils trying to identify the global cities.

Globalisation of the high streets of UK cities is also highly evident, with retail and banking TNCs taking over former

independent shops to create much publicised ‘clone towns’, a term coined by the New Economics Forum. A great

piece of fieldwork on clone towns is available on the RGS IBG website, based on Guildford in Surrey (search for

‘clone town survey’).

Power and Control

Urban areas are often the sites of struggles between those with power and those without. There are often spaces in

urban areas which are privately owned and hostile to outsiders such as gated communities in the suburbs of affluent

cities across the world. Some places are public spaces such as parks and walkways, yet even these can be ‘occupied’

at certain times by specific user groups such as teenagers who could be perceived to be hostile. Some interesting les-

sons could focus on these different key players in cities and the extent to which they exert their power and influence;

from government planning polices and local council rulings providing top down control to youth gangs claiming

rights to territories through fear and intimidation. Relics of colonial rule can still be found in many post-colonial cit-

ies in the world. The geographies of global terrorism often focus in cities, for example the attacks on the economic

6

heartland of New York in 2001, or the transport infrastructure of London in 2005. These were significant, geo-

graphical, targets. Attacks on embassies in cities are also statements of power and rule, and nationalism.

Doreen Massey has written extensively on power and control in place and space. There is a wealth of material

online about gang crime that could be used by teachers and students.

Unequal cities

The difference between the wealthy and the poor is often a feature of urban geography courses and is usually

illustrated by focusing on slum developments in poorer cities of the world like Mumbai or Lagos and comparing

these to rich cities like London. This can really be brought to significance by contrasting the slums of Mumbai

(eg Dharavi slum) with the wealthier parts of the same city, and also comparing a deprived estate in Leeds (for

example) with the wealthier parts of the city. Films like Slumdog Millionaire can spark creative responses to

places, and census data for the UK can statistically compare neighbourhoods within the same cities.

Lived space

Cities are inherently about people, and many of the recent advances in urban geography have taken ideas from

sociology to try to explain and account for the human phenomena of cities. Cultural geography tries to explain

how different cultural and religious groups interact within the same urban locations, and the extent to which they

can integrate and create new ‘hybrid’ cultures evident through food, clothing and music (established Asian cul-

ture now has huge influence over many areas of UK life), and the stigmatisation and ghettoisation that can result

from a lack of integration such as that which occurred in the Bronx in New York.

‘Lived space’ tries to look at the ways in which people and places influence each other and the role that market-

ing has on this interaction. See the work of Ed Soja here on ‘Thirdspace’; a couple of articles on how this might

be of use to teachers are in the summer 2011 editions of the GA’s ‘Geography’ and ‘Teaching Geography’.

Iconic structures

One way cities try to differentiate themselves from other cities is

through iconic buildings and structures, for example the London

Eye, the Empire State building, or the seemingly never ending

competition to design and build the world’s tallest buildings.

Some really engaging geography can try to focus on architecture

and what image that tries to promote for the city. This could be

modern, clean, and sleek (e.g. Guggenheim museum in Bilbao) or

imposing and controlling (e.g. Parliament Palace, Bucharest).

Some interesting cross curricular work with art/design technology

could occur here.

Sustainable cities

As sites of human dwelling and massive consumption, cities rely

on large hinterlands to sustain them; places to grow the food eaten

by the people, places to recycle or destroy the waste produced and

to generate the energy consumed. An exploration of these often

‘hidden’ areas can look at the long term sustainability of these

regions. Compare the efficiency, for example, of a suburban recy-

cling centre in a UK city with the ‘ragpicker’ slum dwellers of

developing cities. Some cities in rich parts of the world trade

waste internationally, which results in its transportation around the

world. A focus on a city like Curitiba in Brazil, (which won a

‘Global Sustainable City’ award in 2010) can enable comparisons

with other places.

Picture: Guggenheim museum, Bilbao.

(Image from Chris Hyde under a creative commons licence.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11309442@N06/1113877311/

sizes/m/in/photostream/)

7

Redevelopment and rebranding strategies often try to bring former industrial, abandoned ‘brownfield’ sites back into

use; questioning the sustainability of new developments, as well as assessing the impacts of the redevelopment on the

communities who once lived there also provides another angle on this traditional topic.

John Widdowson has written some excellent resources on sustainable cities (including a GCSE Toolkit) and has de-

veloped some great resources on the geography of the London 2012 Olympics (see the GA website).

Curriculum making

Choices need to be made about which urban areas to study. Us-

ing local ones that are familiar to students certainly increases

relevance, but also consider using ones that are ‘sensational’ in

some way (as Janet Speake would describe). Las Vegas always

captures students’ imaginations, and class time can be used to

explore why it seems ‘exciting’. Fieldwork into cities gives stu-

dents valuable first-hand experience, and if safety, time or budg-

etary constraints exist, then ‘virtual fieldtrips’ using street view

in Google Earth can be a substitute. There are many exciting ur-

ban fieldwork options online, and rather than doing the predict-

able pedestrian or car counts, get students to use video cameras

to record an aspect of their urban investigations.

The time is right to update urban geography courses, and, to

quote David Lambert from the GA’s manifesto ‘A Different

View’ (available from the GA website), “… we may need to

throw out crusty old favourites … in favour of stronger links

with other subjects and lessons that challenge students to make

geographical sense of their own lives and experiences”.

Perhaps if we do this we can get away from the ‘boring and ir-

relevant’ geography of Burgess and Hoyt.

Further reading, other than those mentioned above:

To update teachers’ subject knowledge:

Book- Tim Hall (2006) Urban geography: 3rd Edition.

Routledge.

Article- Janet Speake (2007) Sensational Cities, Geography 92

(1). Available to download for subscribers on the GA website.

For some more ideas on pedagogy:

Liz Taylor (2004) Re-Presenting geography. Chris Kington.,

Cambridge.

David Mitchell (editor) Living Geography: exciting futures for teachers and students. Chris Kington publishing. Es-

pecially sustainable communities chapter by Angus Willson.

Plus, numerous online forums and geography teaching websites.

Wall Street

(Liverpool, not New York!)

Photo © Rob Morris

8

Modern phones are often powerful personal and mobile computers. They can connect

students to the Internet, entertain them with games, music or films, access texts and

internet messaging. They also allow them to capture HD video and still images and

access social media sites. They can even, at a push, make phone calls...

The screens of modern phones and tablets (whatever their screen size) are filled with

apps (applications). These number in their hundreds of thousands and range in price

from ‘my favourite price’ (free) to hundreds of pounds.

Which essential apps should the modern geographer (whether teacher or student) in-

stall on their device to enable them to make the most of its potential?

Apps are available from a range of app stores. The Apple app store has been joined by

Android, Google Play, Windows apps and also the MacApp store.

Organised smartphone users use folder options, or perhaps create specific screens for

particular groups of apps. Some screen-

shots in this article were borrowed from

John Sayers, a teacher from Gateshead who

shares a range of ideas for using apps on

his blog (see weblinks at the end of the arti-

cle) These are all based on personal experi-

ence in his classroom.

It’s worth mentioning that apps which are

downloaded do not have to be permanently

stored on a device. They are stored ‘in the

cloud’, and can be accessed on devices like

an iPad when required and downloaded to

the machine when wifi is available. This

allows users to take advantage of periods

when apps may be free of charge for a short

period of time, and download them to a

device before temporarily removing them.

The Google Play store also has a ‘Refund’

button which allows a cancellation within

15 minutes.

I most often use iOS apps but also have a

Nexus 7 tablet to explore the potential of

alternative formats, and have enjoyed some

of the options that it offers. Here are some possible ‘folders’ along with a few useful

apps that might go into them. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list - this would be

impossible as many new useful apps will have appeared in the time between my fin-

ishing this article, the article being published, and you reading these words right now.

Paul Turner, who currently teaches at Sevenoaks School, produced a very useful

poster which showed a range of apps that he used for fieldwork. This is reproduced on

page 9 (opposite) and provides a good starter library for anyone interested in taking

this a little further.

Spread a little ‘App’iness… - Alan Parkinson

App (noun)- a self-

contained program or

piece of software

designed to fulfil a

particular purpose; an

application (Oxford

English Dictionary)

Alan Parkinson is a free-

lance Geographer having

previously worked for the

GA and as a Head of Ge-

ography for 20 years.

9

10

Geographical Enquiries and Research

Some possible apps for developing research skills and narrative creation:

Photography and Video

Some possible apps for photography and video manipulation. Digital photography has gone through a major surge in use since phone cameras reached the same standard as the old film cameras in terms of image quality. Good im-

ages are essential for engaging pupils and driving the narrative of a lesson, and they can be shared easily using apps

like Instagram and Flickr.

Name Features Price Format

Flipboard Add in a range of news feeds and curate your own

themed ‘newspaper’

Free iOS

7 Billion Produced by the National Geographic to explore the

issue of population growth.

Free iOS

Environment Agency The official Flood Alert app allows students to ex-

plore flood risk in the local area, and create their own

Flood Plans

Free iOS / Android

FlightRadar24 Explore the airspace above the school and discover

where planes that can be seen in the sky are actually

heading. Bring transport to life.

£1.49 and

up

iOS/ Android /

Windows /

Mac

Name Features Price Format

Snapseed Photo-editing made easy - create great results for

starter images and student use. Lots of filters and very

simple user interface.

Free iOS

Diptic Blend a number of images together into a series of

frames to tell a story or show a progression. A nice

way of telling a story.

69p iOS / An-

droid

Freeze Paint Free Create a photo collage by ‘selecting’ an area of the

screen, locking it in place, then pointing the camera

somewhere else. Easier to use than describe.

Free iOS

Coach’s Eye Record a scene, pause it, rewind it, play it back slow

motion and annotate it. Try videoing some breaking

waves and analysing the wave type afterwards.

£2.99 iOS / An-

droid

Fotobabble Make your photo ‘talk’ by adding an audio clip to it.

Great for fieldwork.

Free iOS

Skitch Take a photo, or a screenshot and annotate it to your

hearts content. Share the results, or add to Evernote.

Free iOS / An-

droid / Mac

App

11

Name Features Price Format

iGeology / MySoil Produced by the British Geological Survey - show

you the details of the rocks and soil beneath your

feet

Free iOS / An-

droid / Google

Play

(iGeology

only)

Field Notes Pro (and

Lite)

Allows the creation of a set of fieldwork reports for

locations which include lat/long, video, audio and

text notes - can then be exported as a PDF

£6.99 or Free iOS

iSAY An app from the University of Salford, which al-

lows sound to be recorded, and descriptive tags to

be added before it is added to a collaborative map.

Download other people’s sounds as mp3 files.

Free iOS

Motion X GPS Produce a record of any journey or walk, complete

with images and other media at points of interest -

creates an elevation profile and exports in GPX

format, which can be imported into GIS software -

plot a river or other route

£1.49 iOS

ClickCounter Use for traffic or pedestrian counts - each click is

recorded and can be graphed over time

Free iOS / similar

app in Google

Play

MyRegister Free app created by Scout leader for keeping check

of groups and doing head counts during a visit.

Free iOS

Sketch+ Turn an image into a sketch - save time on field

sketching :)

69p iOS

Mission Explore Over 10 000 ‘missions’ to carry out over the UK, in

what Alan Kinder has called ‘innovative and brave’

ethnographic fieldwork

Free iOS

Fieldwork

Some possible apps for use in fieldwork are shown below:

12

Mapping

Mapping in the classroom or in the field. This is an area which mobile devices are becoming increasingly sophisti-

cated at.

Some practical considerations

Some schools are exploring new options for the use of smartphones and tablets. The idea of ‘Bring your own de-

vice’ (BYOD) is one that is growing in popularity, despite some of the issues with compatibility, and the need for

wifi.

The iPad has started to prove its worth as a classroom device with a number of 1:1 rollouts in schools which have

often been documented by the teachers.

One of the most useful examples of this is the work of Fraser Speirs, who works at the Cedars School in Scotland,

but this has been joined by many more during 2012/13. If using a lot of machines, managing the apps that are in-

stalled and user accounts can be difficult. Apple Configurator app has recently been launched to make this process

easier to organise, and this Snapguide provides the details for those of you who may be interested in organising a

trial of multiple devices: http://snapguide.com/guides/use-apple-configurator/

The Snapguide App itself is interesting, a free app which could be used by students to create their own ‘how to...’

guide.

There are a number of research projects that are exploring the potential of apps. Most of these are keen to stress that

the pedagogy comes before the technology.

The Enhancing Fieldwork Learning project - supported by Higher Education Agency - is one of these. Although it

involves a number of lecturers from higher education, the ideas are transferable into the classroom, and I attended a

very interesting showcase event, where numerous apps were trialled in the field. See later for the website where you

can explore these ideas yourself.

Name Features Price Format

ArcGIS Display a range of mapping, and overlay with data. In-

teracts with ArcGIS online, which has a new subscrip-

tion option to collect data ‘live’ in the field

(subscription required at around £250 per year)

Free iOS / An-

droid /

Google Play

Atlas by Collins A hefty app which requires a lot of space, but provides

a range of virtual globes over which layers and data can

be draped. Powerful, up-to-date and authoritative map-

ping from the creators of the Times Atlas of the World

£4.99 iOS

Google Maps A new app which integrates maps with Google Street-

View and provides sat nav functionality too.

Free iOS

OS MapFinder New for January 2013. The app is free, and offers a ba-

sic map. Download new tiles for 69p (1:50 000) or

£2.49 (1: 25 000) and add / plot routes on OS maps.

Free app

but maps

cost

iOS / An-

droid

‘coming

soon’

Google Earth Although Google Earth is not technically a ‘map’ of

course, this app offers wonderful aerial imagery and

integration with StreetView. An essential app.

Free iOS / An-

droid /

Google Play

13

John Sayers refers to the SAMR model when he con-

siders whether an app is having an impact on teaching

and learning or not, and is wary of using those that

don’t. The SAMR sequence refers to whether the app is

used for one of the following things:

Substition - to replace an existing tool

Augmentation - to replace an existing tool, but with

some improvement

Modification - to allow a task to be redesigned and im-

proved as a result

Redefinition - to create a new task which previously

was not possible

There are several places for apps in the classroom, but

it is important for their use to move beyond the ‘S’,

which would be the equivalent of just using an interac-

tive whiteboard to display powerpoint slides.

It’s also worth noting the rise of games based learning. Many educators are using games for educational purposes.

New and recent apps

One particular useful and impressive application from the Mac App Store is the Reflection app, which costs about

£10. This requires an Apple Mac to work, which is of course not universally available, but there are similar apps

available for Windows laptops.

WiFi is needed for this to work, but it is able to ‘mirror’ the display from a device onto the screen of an Apple laptop

or desktop, along with any sounds that are included. The resulting images could be displayed using a data projector,

so that students could use an iPad and everyone in the class could see what they are doing. In this way, students are

creating the learning and the resources, perhaps using another laptop-based web-app like Triptico, which offers a

range of interactive tools to create classroom resources.

Some apps are developed to be used offline.

One recent app which was designed to be used in this way is the Atlas by Collins app. This was launched in October

2012 at the price of £4.99. It is a large app at over 600 Mb, and requires an iPad 2 and above or iPhone 4 and above.

It offers a range of globes with information on tens of thousands of places around the world, and a range of datasets

which can be interrogated. A classy app.

If you have further questions on the use of apps, or are already running a 1:1 tablet / mobile device scheme and

would like to invite me in to see it in action, please get in touch. My e-mail is at the end of the article.

Weblinks

John Sayers’ blog: http://sayersjohn.blogspot.co.uk/

The VITAL Geography portal which I manage: http://www.vital.ac.uk/portals has a range of app suggestions and

you can also watch and listen to an hour-long discussion on apps here: http://www.vital.ac.uk/events/spread-little-

appiness

The Living Geography blog: http://livinggeography.blogspot.com has many app recommendations. Search using the

box in the top left of the screen. Subscribe to the blog to hear all the latest geography news first.

Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Project website: http://www.enhancingfieldwork.org.uk/

David Rogers’ blog (plenty on mobile learning and other things): http://daviderogers.blogspot.com

The SAMR model was developed by Ruben R. Puentedura, Ph.D, who also created the image used in the article.

I am also grateful to John Sayers, who has shared screenshots to show how he organises the apps on his iPad.

I can be contacted at a.parkinson@gmail.com and you can follow me at @GeoBlogs on Twitter.

14

In July 2012, a party of eighteen pupils from Shrewsbury School travelled to Malawi in

order to undertake work at an orphanage, hospital and school that are being run with the

support of a charity called Medic Malawi. Building on a preliminary investigation un-

dertaken by staff and pupils of Wrekin College, a small group of volunteers were tasked

with finding out precisely how the locals obtain their water, what they use it for and –

in collaboration with a Shropshire-based hydrological consultancy company, Hafren

Water – whether or not it might be possible to improve supplies in the future.

The fieldwork

In order to assess the current situation, a questionnaire was undertaken at St. Andrew’s

Hospital in which patients who were waiting for treatment – or their relatives – were

asked where they got their water from, how much they paid and whether or not their

sources ever ran dry. Quite remarkably, every single person who was approached an-

swered each question to the best of their ability, despite the process taking twice as long

as would have been the case had there been no need for translation … a response rate

that is rarely experienced in the UK! The problem then was trying to decipher place

names and then to accurately locate each respondent’s home town as it was very hard to

source maps of the area.

Far more accurate information was obtained by visiting as many local villages as possi-

ble. At each settlement, a portable dipmeter was used to determine the height of the

water table below wells and the flow rate of water from pumps and taps was measured.

A photographic record was made of all of the wells, pumps and tapstands that could be

found and their precise location was recorded using a hand-help Global Positioning

System (GPS). Finally, a sample of local residents was asked questions similar to those

posed at the hospital.

Kamuzu Academy

Being fortunate enough to be able to stay in the girls’ boarding house at Kamuzu Acad-

emy, we had the luxury of virtually limitless volumes of fresh, clean drinking water on

tap throughout our stay in one of the poorest countries in the World. Rather unusually,

Kamuzu Academy has a dedicated Water Supervisor who employs a team of eighteen

full-time workers who are tasked with maintaining water supplies not only for the staff

and pupils at the school but also to a number of key establishments in the surrounding

area. Between them, they operate a water supply system consisting of a large reservoir,

a smaller ornamental lake, two rapid gravity sand filters and even a rudimentary sewage

treatment works. Having been installed before the school was officially opened in 1981

by the then President of Malawi, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, it must have been very ad-

vanced in its day but it is now beginning to show significant signs of ageing and has

been suffering from a lack of routine maintenance since losing unequivocal government

support when Banda died in 1997.

Undertaking fieldwork in sub-Saharan Africa: A water survey of the Mtunthama

Region of Malawi—Steve Fox

A UK-based charity

recently asked a

party of school

pupils to investigate

the problems

associated with

water supply in a

remote part of one

of the poorest

countries in the

World.

How did they

undertake this

fieldwork and what

did they find?

Steve Fox teaches

Geography at

Shrewsbury School

15

The reservoir

As Shrewsbury is situated so close to Wales, I had expected the 1.3km long reservoir to be located in an upland area

(as is the case with the reservoirs at Bala, Vrynwy and Clywedog etc.) but the fact that Kamuzu Academy sits on a

very dry plateau at an altitude of over 1100m meant that, in actual fact, the reservoir had to be sited at the bottom of a

valley some 12 kilometres away from – and over 130m below – the main school buildings. No wonder the diesel

pump that had originally been installed in 1982 could not cope! It had subsequently been replaced by two electric

pumps, each of which had the capacity to pump 15,000 li-

tres of water per hour had they been working but one was

lacking a number of crucial parts so, for the duration of our

visit, the entire water supply system was relying on just one

pump that had to operate for 22 hours every day. Three

engineers worked 8-hour shifts through the night to make

sure that sufficient water was supplied either to the orna-

mental lake in front of Kamuzu Academy or, in untreated

form, to the vegetable gardens that supply the students and

teachers with a wide range of fresh produce: the 1000

chickens kept in the poultry house lay between 700 and 800

eggs per day, for instance, but only if they are provided

with 3 – 3.5 tonnes of feed per month.

Water treatment works

Three more pumps are needed to transfer water from the ornamental lake to two purification plants (one on the

school site and another off site) and the completely integrated irrigation system that keeps the school grounds look-

ing so lush and fertile. The two rapid gravity sand filters each process 7000 litres per hour. After having been chlo-

rinated, this water is temporarily stored in 66,000 litre storage tanks for distribution around the school site

(classrooms, boarding accommodation, staff housing, a clinic and even two swimming pools) and, via 110mm pipes,

to a wide range of establishments off site (St. Andrew’s hospital, All Saints school, Wrekin orphanage, Mtunthama

market, a number of village tapstands and, very sensibly, the local police unit!).

Wastewater generally feeds into septic tanks which are emptied roughly once a year by the town assembly but Ka-

muzu Academy itself has a series of four settling tanks which contain progressively fresher water (as monitored by

different species of fish which have been deliberately introduced into the ponds for precisely that purpose). These

were last emptied roughly three years ago. The effluent is eventually discharged into a local stream, at which point,

local people are able to grow copious quantities of vegetables because the ground is not just moist but also highly

fertile.

Tapstands

The off-site water treatment works provides clean water to a large proportion of the local community,

supplying water throughout the year to 90 staff houses and 160 private homes in Mtunthama; 20 houses

and a tapstand in Chota village, 8 houses and a tapstand in Mphnongo village and a wide range of enter-

prises such as Mtunthama market and the hospital, school and orphanage supported by “Medic Malawi”.

It’s a much-appreciated service which works pretty well most of the time, although a growth in demand

is now beginning to stretch water supplies to their absolute limit. At the orphanage, for instance, the gar-

dener only has access to water for about two hours per day. This is enough to irrigate a very well -tended

vegetable patch which supplies fresh vegetables to the 70 or so orphans and staff. Were there to be more

water at his disposal, the gardener would be capable of growing surplus fruit and vegetables for sale at

the local market: there is plenty of land available, the only limiting factor being the cost and availability

of water.

KamuzuAcademy—The ‘Eton of Africa’

16

Pumps

In those villages located beyond the reach of Kamuzu Academy’s pipelines,

residents usually get their water from boreholes using “AfriDev” pumps.

These seem to have been installed pretty extensively over the past 20 years

or so either by the government or by NGOs such as the US Peace Corps and

the Malawi Social Action Fund (MASAF), a scheme supported by the World

Bank. The water from such hand pumps is free and, apparently, safe al-

though queuing can be quite a significant problem and the pumps occasion-

ally break down altogether. Spare parts were relatively expensive and occa-

sionally, engineers had to be called out from Kasungu, the regional capital,

to replace vital components such as axles. As a result, certain pumps de-

velop a good reputation and become popular owing to the perceived quality

of the water and/or the speed of flow.

Wells

In some of the outlying townships, neither taps nor pumps were available so the locals had to sink their own

wells. Despite having been dug by hand, these could occasionally reach depths of over 15 metres although

wells of roughly 8 metres were more common because the water table was met at an average depth of 7.5 me-

tres below the surface. Most were protected by makeshift covers to stop debris from entering and chlorine

tablets were thrown in on a monthly basis but, judging by the quality of both the buckets and the ropes being

used, this could not have prevented the water quality from being quite poor. Typically, a family would extract

about 70 – 100 litres of water per day for drinking, cooking and washing from such a well and, quite often, the

owners would also allow their neighbours to extract similar amounts without charge.

Dambos

Although there is very little surface water in this part of Malawi, there are numerous dry valleys in which the

water table is much closer to the surface. In these “dambo” areas, locals can not only grow fruits and vegeta-

bles quite intensively but they can also dig shallow wells to provide water for other uses. Some farmers have

dug linear troughs near the centre of the dambo so that watering their cabbages, beans, tomatoes and sweet

potatoes is not normally necessary until the very height of the dry season. The water in a dambo is generally

not clean enough for human consumption but can be used for washing and is occasionally drunk when no bet-

ter option is available.

One of the expeditioners tending a highly produc-

tive vegetable patch, the produce from which …

… was immediately put to good use by other expe-

ditioners who were helping to cook lunch for 70

17

Conclusion

The community located in the vicinity of Kamuzu Academy

clearly derive great benefit from the availability of fresh, clean

drinking water sourced from a large reservoir which never

runs dry and from a series of treatment works and pipes which

have served them well for over thirty years. Those people

living in outlying districts are rather less fortunate in that they

either have to queue at a pump for clean water or risk becom-

ing ill by drinking water from a well. The hospital, school and

orphanage that are supported by Medic Malawi are fortunate

to be supplied by Kamuzu Academy at the moment but would

be well-advised to try to secure their own supply in the future

as their demand for water, inevitably, grows.

Acknowledgements

Steven Cale, Wrekin College

Stephen Drew, Medic Malawi

Dr. Tim Foulger, Shrewsbury School Geography Faculty

Fyson Kanjira and Ojes Mwela ,Kamuzu Academy

Chris Leake, Hafren Water

All photos © Steve Fox

Medic Malawi is a small charity, funding a hospital in Mtunthama, rural Malawi, which opened in

2001, together with a clinic for feeding the malnourished and an orphanage for 70 children. This

charity is special because:

Every penny raised goes to Malawi – there are no UK administration costs or salaries.

We seek to involve supporters and volunteers – and especially teenagers – in the actions of the

charity, experiencing Africa for themselves and sharing time with the people in Mtunthama. It is

focused on one district, which offers continuity, regular contact and transparency.

Shrewsbury School support Medic Malawi through regular charity events and by pupils visiting

Malawi every other year to work on various projects in the community.

Medic Malawi is run by the former head of Wrekin College in Shropshire, Stephen Drew. He can

be contacted at medicmalawi@gmail.com

Website: www. medicmalawi.org

A Dambo—shared by three farmers

18

“Fieldwork is a vital ingredient of the geography that is taught in our schools and teaches

the children a wide variety of both geographical and life skills” – not my words but those

of the ISSIG chair. Although written about common entrance, the sentiment applies

throughout the full age range and is particularly relevant in the context of the reforms

being discussed at GSCE and A level.

In various meetings with the Secretary of State for Edu-

cation, Schools Minister and Lord Hill (who has out-

door learning as part of his portfolio), it is clear they

are all hugely supportive of fieldwork and see it as an

essential part of every geography student’s learning. It

is also clear that they are not keen on using assessment

as a means of dictating approaches to teaching and

learning. This is unlikely to prove to be a barrier to the

amount of fieldwork being undertaken by independent

schools as many already do more fieldwork than is re-

quired for the ‘test’ and often choose to do specifica-

tions where fieldwork is more prominent.

It is quite possible that the reforms may be perceived as

taking us back to the late 70’s and early 80’s (and my

early days as a field tutor), when fieldwork was carried

out for precisely the reasons set out in the opening quote. As long as it delivers inspiring

geography that may be no bad thing. Courses were largely week long affairs and, if

memory serves me correctly, a typical course would include full days on fluvial geomor-

phology; soils and hydrology; coastal erosion; coastal deposition; settlements, and slopes

and tor formation. Some of these topics are no longer in the current specifications but

many others have been introduced, especially the people environment interactions intro-

duced to fieldwork largely through the Avery Hill and 16-19 geography projects.

Taking a trip down memory lane is deliberate because I anticipate that much of the field-

work we will be undertaking post 2014/15 will see a similar approach. It will, of course,

be updated in terms of theory,

learning approaches and tech-

nology but, at A-level, will

tackle one of the major current

issues of bridging the gap be-

tween school and university.

For much of physical geography

the depth of investigation, range

of skills employed and sophisti-

cation of equipment used is less

than it was 30 years ago. Over

the same period, university in-

vestigations have gone in the

opposite direction.

The Future of Fieldwork: an FSC perspective - Rob Lucas

“We need to

make geography

fieldwork both

real and relevant–

it underpins much

of how industry

and society

functions but we

rarely make that

link effectively”

Rob Lucas is the Chief

Executive Officer of

the Field Studies

Council

Perhaps a day not to be doing Rivers fieldwork?

19

Much of the innovation in school geog-

raphy fieldwork has been in the built

environment which is hugely improved

compared to the drab land use transects

I remember (possibly an early example

of a good data set being given higher

priority than good geography!). We

need to make geography fieldwork both

real and relevant – it underpins much of

how industry and society functions but

we rarely make that link effectively.

Google Earth may be appropriate at

KS3 and even GCSE, and has specific

uses beyond this, but by A-level full

blown GIS packages should be the

norm. We should be making more use

of remote data collection to supplement that collected first hand and using fieldwork to join up the geographical

landscape rather than reduce it to a data set about a meander.

Freeing up the curriculum and reducing the teach-

ing time taken up by assessment will present more

opportunities for fieldwork. There are good reasons

for doing fieldwork at almost any time of year and

with geography beginning at the classroom door,

whether on the way in or out, the opportunities for

first hand experiences have never been greater. The

new GCSE is likely to encourage going beyond the

at times formulaic ‘one day rivers one day urban’

fieldwork and opportunities for supported inde-

pendent learning (especially in the summer period)

may become far more common at A-level. Our real

challenge is to make fieldwork a seamless part of

the geography experience and not a ‘bolt-on’ accessory, all too often sacrificed on the false premise that a more

effective learning experience can be achieved by wading through the next chapter of the set text.

Geography fieldwork has evolved enor-

mously over the last 30 years and we

must maintain the creativity which now

regularly sees students in the field using

iPads and other resources to augment

their learning whilst getting back to the

development of real life skills which

geography is uniquely placed to deliver.

We look forward to working with you

over the coming months to achieve this

common goal.

Questionnaires in Aberystwyth—one of last summer’s few dry days!

20

Satellite Navigation (Sat Nav) technologies are increasingly part of everyday wayfind-

ing. Sat Nav enabled smart phones and in-vehicle systems are used by an ever widen-

ing range of people for finding their way around places which are new or unfamiliar to

them. Marketed as a straight forward electronic navigation tool, Sat Nav also represents

the first general adoption of location-aware systems (also called egocentric and ani-

mated multimodal ‘me maps’) for navigation and journey planning. As a navigation

tool, Sat Nav also signals a change in the (re)presentation of cartographic information.

In 2009, there were more than 150 million Sat Nav devices, systems and applications

globally (Berg Insight nd). The annual tracking survey by NAVTEQ showed that be-

tween 2009 and 2010 consumer experience of Sat Nav devices, systems and applica-

tions increased in 13 countries (NAVTEQ, 2011). Over half of consumer respondents

in Australia, China, France, Germany and the UK had experience of Sat Nav systems

and devices. Comparative figures for the USA were 46%; Indonesia, 35%; Brazil,

33%; Mexico, 25% and India, 17%. Consumer respondents had more experience of

portable devices than in-vehicle systems and Nat Nav enabled mobile phones and smart

phones. More recent findings by Mintel (2012) suggest that personal use of smart

phones and use of on-line maps is increasing rapidly.

Despite the advantages of Sat Nav in assisting navigation, there is a tendency for people

in general and the media more specifically, to concentrate on the disadvantages. Head-

lines such as ‘Sat Nav blunder takes Christmas shoppers to Lille … Belgium instead of

France’ , ‘Sat Nav blunder as trucker gets stuck up woodland path’ and ‘Sat Nav

blamed yet again for wedged lorry’ are common. They concentrate on the actual and

potential risks of distractions created by the system, over-dependence on the technol-

ogy, reduced spatial awareness and dependency on sometimes out-dated, underlying

cartographic information.

The first Sat Nav summit was convened by the UK government, Department for Trans-

port in March 2012 (Department for

Transport, 2012) to attempt to sort

out some of the most obvious prob-

lems associated with Sat Nav use.

The main issues it looked into were 1.

Cutting down the number and seri-

ousness of blunders associated with

users following inappropriate direc-

tions and ending up in dangerous

driving situations and 2. Creating bet-

ter opportunities for users to update

the digital mapping base regularly and

affordably.

In recent research carried out at Liver-

pool Hope University’s geography department (Axon, Speake and Crawford, 2012) we

have found that there is considerably more to Sat Nav use than the general negativities

reported in the press, and often cited by individual users (especially drivers). Impor-

tantly, we have found that Sat Nav is altering people’s behaviours as they wayfind and

is changing the practices and processes of navigating. Positive attributes of Sat Nav

were considered to be navigational capacity, to provide direct and quick routes, the

speed and ease of use and portability and clarity of using Sat Nav technology.

There’s much more to Sat Nav than Sat Nav blunders - Dr. Janet Speake

This lorry got stuck in November 2012 in Ply-

mouth

Photo © BBC

Dr Janet Speake is a Senior

Lecturer in Human Geog-

raphy at Liverpool Hope

University.

“We have found

that the use of Sat

Nav technologies is

altering people’s

understandings of

what ‘maps’ are and

do”

21

Negative characteristics of Sat Nav technologies were reported to be safety and financial attributes, especially that

they were costly, both in terms of initial purchase and acquiring mapping updates.

Perhaps even more significantly, we have found that the use of Sat Nav technologies is altering people’s understand-

ings of what ‘maps’ are and do. We have explored first year geography undergraduates’ experiences of, and attitudes

towards, Sat Nav use as well as its effects on cartographic literacy and spatial awareness. This work has started to

address a major gap in the existing geographical literature.

Key findings of our work to date are that digital spatial representations are not seen, or used in the same way as tradi-

tional technologies of navigation. Importantly, these representations are not considered to be ‘maps’ like traditional

paper-based maps but as something different. Sat Nav technologies are preferred to ‘traditional’ maps, with some

students claiming for example, ‘I never use maps anymore’ and ‘I only use Sat Nav’. They tend to engage passively

with traditional paper based maps but actively with Sat Nav technologies. The use of Sat Nav generates multi-

sensory engagements in ways not present in traditional map

reading. The visual recognition of symbols and signs is being

replaced by greater dependence on verbal instruction. There

are clear concerns that the use of Sat Nav might reduce the

ability to interpret spatial data and read traditional maps. This,

students recognise, by stating that they had lost, or were losing,

their map reading abilities and that, because they did not now

need to use paper-based maps regularly, they were getting out

of practice. Some students show concern about their actual or

potential loss of skills in handling spatial data. However,

many are not worried by it at all and see it as just a natural out-

come of having access to new, different and generally effective, navigational technologies.

We argue that Sat Nav is having major spatial and cartographic impacts which, to date, have been under-reported.

Our on-going research into engagement with Sat Nav technologies and the implications for cartographic literacy and

spatial awareness suggest very strongly that there is a role for geographers to participate more fully in these emerging

dialogues. With the seemingly inexorable rise of Sat Nav enabled smart phones, and increasing rates of adoption

and use by younger users, there are potentially challenging implications for the levels of graphicacy and spatial

awareness in school and college students. For some of them, the only place that they will encounter the need to read

traditional maps may be in the classroom as part of their school based learning experience. The challenges for the

future of map reading and the role of maps in geography and in the geography classroom are therefore significant

and it is now timely for discussion and debate within the geography community to be moved forwards.

References

Axon, S., Speake, J. and Crawford, K. (2012) ‘At the next junction, turn left’: attitudes towards Sat Nav Use, Area

44.2: 170-177

Berg Insight (nd) Personal navigation devices: executive summary (http://www.berginsight.com/

ReportPDFsummary/bi-pnd3-sum.pdf) (accessed 10 June 2011)

Department for Transport (2012) Government’s First Sat Nav Summit 6th March 2012.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/governments-first-satnav-summit (accessed 15th November 2012)

Mintel (2012) ‘Digital trends spring – UK-April 2012’, http://oxygen.mintel.com/display/590111 (accessed 15th No-

vember 2012).

NAVTEQ (2011) NAVTEQ reveals 2010 research results on the state of navigation (http://press.navteq.com/

index.php?s=4260&item=25821) (accessed 15 November 2012).

22

The importance of Fieldwork

Fieldwork is at the core of all good Geography. It is what keeps Geography relevant and ex-

citing both to teach and learn. Many subjects become abstract and stale in the classroom,

with our subject we can just look out of the window or go out through the door to see, feel

and touch real Geography. Most importantly, fieldwork is fun!

These are changing times in Prep School Geography and teachers have had to cope with nu-

merous alterations and tweaks in their syllabus. The syllabus focused on case studies which

meant that pupils could get a high score just by memorising knowledge and demonstrating

little geographical understanding. The CE syllabus is under review at the present time and it

is set to champion more understanding and future examination papers promise to contain

more data response and interpretation style questions. Enquiry geography facilitates under-

standing by applying knowledge to real examples in real places and fieldwork is the ultimate

expression of geographical enquiry.

Fieldwork at Common Entrance

Changes at GCSE, A Level and IB have moved the focus of assessing fieldwork on the abil-

ity of a candidate to collect and apply data without ever going through the whole process of

reporting their findings in full. The importance of fieldwork write-up at Common Entrance

has been questioned, but the determination of the prep school teachers across the country and

some senior school Heads of Department have ensured that it has kept its place in the 13+

examinations. This is reflected in the 20% value that it still contributes to candidates’ final

mark.

Although it contributes to one fifth of a pupil’s score, there is no way that work on this one

write-up should take up one fifth of their lesson time. The guidelines are very clear that the

piece of work should be less than a thousand words and test a simple hypothesis. It should

show the senior school how much geographical understanding a pupil has rather than regur-

gitating knowledge in an ‘old-style’ project. This does mean that work should be all the pu-

pils own work and excessive teacher or parent involvement is counter-productive. The high

marks do tend to encourage some parents and teachers to encourage children to over-egg

their work and try to produce something more akin to an A Level. Most senior schools use

the fieldwork as a differentiation tool and so producing a cohort of nearly identical write-ups

is not helpful, as well as a little tedious to read through. The difference between getting 60%

(12/20) and 80% (16/20) in the fieldwork section only accounts for four marks in the whole

scheme of things, but it really helps the person marking get a feel for the candidate’s true

knowledge and understanding.

The marks available are disproportional to the amount of work put into that one piece of

work but it should be seen as a summary of that child’s fieldwork and a reflection of their

geographical understanding. Also, if the percentage dropped below 20% then there would be

numerous Directors of Studies around the country asking their Heads of Geography why they

need to do fieldwork anymore.

Fitting fieldwork in

Different schools have different ways of carrying out fieldwork. Some carry out regular one-

day trips others put all of their eggs in one basket and take the children away for a week.

Fieldwork should be a regular tool used in delivering the geography curriculum and in most

cases it can be done around the school grounds. Some schools give the pupils some ideas,

some resources and some guidance and then expect the children carry out the fieldwork

themselves over a holiday. This latter works well in that the pupils really own the material

and it is much more interesting for the senior schools. The big disadvantage with this ap-

proach is that one or two pushy parents can get over-involved and introduce concepts far out-

side their child’s understanding in order to try to get full marks. The key point is that the

children must physically collect the data themselves and understand why they have collected

the data.

Geography Fieldwork at Common Entrance- Nik Miller

Nik Miller is the Head

of Geography at

Brambletye School,

East Grinstead and

IAPS Subject Leader

for Geography

“Fieldwork

should be a

regular tool used

in delivering the

geography

curriculum ”

23

What makes a good fieldwork write-up? As already stated, the write-up should be short and concise, no more than ten pages and have a single, simple hy-

pothesis (perhaps a second linked one if really needed). Although geographical investigations can rely on qualitative

data, it is much easier at this stage to use quantitative data. The structure of the fieldwork should be rigorous with

clearly separated sections. This has now been very clearly stated in the most recent ISEB guidelines for CE field-

work. The write-up must be divided into the following parts:

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is a simple statement that can be proved to be true or false. It should pertain to some element of the

CE Syllabus but if the teacher has a particular passion or there is a hot local issue, then there is nothing wrong with

going off-piste. Ideally it should also contain some geographical terms that appear in the CE glossary. Keep the ideas

simple and keep it to the local area.

Introduction

This section has a tendency to dominate the fieldwork. Simply put it should set the context for the reader. An entire

local history of the area or a detailed description of its flora and fauna is not necessary. Just a simple explanation of

any geographical terms in the hypothesis will suffice coupled with an explanation of why the hypothesis should be

proved true (or in some cases, false) and what data will need to be collected. There must be a location map in this

section. Any photographs must be useful and used, ideally with annotations and helpful captions to show the reader

why they are there. The ‘photo-album’ approach just annoys the examiner: if it is not relevant to the hypothesis then

do not include it.

Method

This should be a simple description of how the data was collected. The inclusion of annotated diagrams and photo-

graphs can make this section more interesting that a dull ‘we did this’ list.

Results

The results should be presented graphically as a land use map or graph. Only graphs relevant to the hypothesis

should be included and only one graph for each set of information: representing the same data as a bar graph, line

graph, 3D area graph and a pie chart just tells the examiner that the child does not understand what the data means.

If there are any clear trends or anomalies, it is a good idea to draw attention to them on the graph with an annotation

or two.

Analysis

This section can be put into the results section or the conclusion section but it must be in the write-up. The candidate

must show that they understand the data that they have collected and what it means. A description of each graph and

both a description and a plausible explanation of any trends and anomalies discovered. This is probably the most

important section in the project as far as the examiners are concerned as it demonstrates the candidate’s true level of

geographical understanding.

Conclusion

A simple statement initially: has the hypothesis been proved true or false? If there are any interesting findings such

as the hypothesis is generally true but there were one or two odd readings then they can be further elaborated upon

here but this should not repeat anything covered in the analysis.

Evaluation

A concise evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the method employed should be offered and some sugges-

tions as to how, were the investigation to be repeated, the collection of data could be improved upon. With unlimited

resources and time, what other data could be collected to test the hypothesis more effectively?

Summary

Fieldwork is a vitally important tool for teaching and learning good geography in prep schools, though there is no

ideal way that fieldwork fits into the school calendar but it must form an integral part of all geography schemes of

work.

Fieldwork carried out by pupils should support and, in some cases, extend their syllabus content. We should ensure

that hypothesis must be simple and easily tested with data that the children can easily collect and understand.

Familiarity with the structure of the write-up should help pupils avoid irrelevant information which does not help

them to prove or disprove their hypotheses.

24

Notes and Queries is published by the Geographical Association

Independent Schools Special Interest Group

Edited by Rob Morris, Geography Faculty, Shrewsbury School and

printed by Shrewsbury School Reprographics Department

All articles are the copyright of the individual authors and should

not be used with out their permission

© GAISSIG 2013