What does Quality Geography look like GA Conference 2015

1. What does Quality Geography
look like as a leader?
Alan Parkinson
SGQM / CoE Moderator

2. Deadline for
applications for 2016
June
A year to prepare…
How can it help you match the leadership
traits already featured in the workshop?

3. GA Quality Marks
• Introduced as part of the ‘Action Plan for
Geography’ (2006-11)
• Secondary Quality Mark has a pass, and
latterly a Centre of Excellence
• Primary Quality Mark has three self-selecting
levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold
• Bronze = quality department, Silver = quality
across the school, Gold = quality shared with
the wider community and local networks

4. Moderated by a team each year
• Primary Quality Marks – a sample of schools is
visited to compare portfolio and ask further
questions to confirm judgements
• Schools sometimes find they are given a grade
higher or lower than the one they opted for
• Bronze is an achievement, and many schools
also resubmit and move up over time as it
gives them confidence to go further
• Have moderated for last 4 years

5. SGQM
• Moderation team meets – worked on team
since awards started
• Paired moderation and then re-moderate if
we are unsure on judgement
• Moderated since the start of the award
• King’s Ely gained SGQM in 2013 and CoE in
2014

6. 2014
• Global Learning Centre of Excellence scheme
was made available as part of the Global
Learning Programme.
• What follows is extracted from a
new support section on SGQM
which will be on the GA website
shortly…

7. Leading the department
• Form for the application has a number of
sections, which need evidencing. Choose
evidence wisely as not every section needs to
have evidence provided…

8. Why do the Quality Mark ?
• Think through your reasons for applying…
something you’ve already done – what do
you want to get out of it…
- Individually / personally
- For the department
- For the school?
- For the students?
- For the wider community

9. Departmental Self Evaluation
• This may be in addition to the requirements
from SLT, or could replace some aspects of
departmental monitoring and quality
assurance.
• A process which staff should go through over
a period of up to a year – not a quick thing…

10. Using pupils as evidence
• Pupil voice part of the process – an essential
part…
• Let them know they are part of raising the
Quality of geography teaching and learning
within the department, and raising the profile
of the department within (and beyond) the
school.
• Google Form to canvas opinions and ideas

11. Audit - honesty
• Targeting areas for improvement – the fact
that you’ve opted to go for SGQM shows you
are serious about this…
“Every teacher needs to improve, not
because they are not good enough, but
because they can be even better.”
Dylan Wiliam

12. Submission Checklist
16 pieces of evidence
3 pieces of student work
1 Scheme of Work with some suggested
lessons
1 Quality Lesson – which is hopefully
representative of other lessons

13. D: Leadership and management in
Geography
This section asks for evidence showing the impact
of good leadership on the geography in your school.
A good leader has the ability to:
• develop a clear vision and strong sense of
purpose for geography, which leads to
improvements in outcomes for learners and is
based on shared values and evaluation of
evidence of current practice and outcomes.
• mobilise, enable and support others to share the
vision and develop and follow through on
strategies to raise standards in geography.

14. St Ivo School Geography Department – SGQM Application – Supporting Evidence
Ev12-D1a – Department Handbook
The Department Handbook has been included as it is the best evidence for demonstrating the clear departmental vision and sense of
purpose we have for Geography. It includes policies, development plans as well as curriculum plans and resource information (e.g.
DVD lists) – ‘a one-stop’ support shop for members of the department.
Departmental SEF Curriculum Planning and Schemes of Work
Department Development / Action Plan Department Policies – e.g. Assessment, Recording, Reporting

15. D1a: The department has a clear shared vision. Leadership in geography is informed by a
high level of subject expertise.
When producing the
department vision we
considered not only our own
personal views as staff, but also
those of subject bodies. We
then thought about how we
might implement the vision via
our schemes of work and
activities, and this is where we
incorporated the views of
students (indirectly, through
verbal and formal feedback).

17. EVIDENCE: D1c – The department is responsive to innovation within the school and the geography education community
and makes effective use of links with other agencies and the wider community in order to inform and enhance the geography curriculum.
12
Left and far right: Examples of newspaper clippings to promote Brightstowe
geography in the local community and provide insight of geography-related
activities for prospective students (and their parents).
Bottom-right: Examples of GA-inspired
activities regarding the legacy of the
London Olympics (based on the
Teaching Geography) special issue and
Olympics-themed pages on the GA
website.
Above: Active global citizenship using
Skype to contact the Head of Oasis USA.
A Q&A session was held for student to
research human trafficking.
Top-left: Part of room set out for
‘Geography Showcase’ whereby parents
are invited in to see the students’ best
work from throughout the year.

18. EVIDENCE: D1d – There are effective liaison activities with other departments within the school and local primary and/or feeder
schools, ensuring a coherent curriculum experience during transition and beyond.
13
Left: Example of cross-curricular initiative which I lead on in an
attempt to improve spelling and literacy. In conjunction with the
English, drama and Modern Foreign Languages departments, a
literature review was conducted in order to ascertain effective
strategies for improving spelling. Active research was
subsequently undertaken with our classes across these
departments in an attempt to test prospective methods for
learning spellings/key vocabulary. The findings from this project
were presented in a research poster (and presented to the staff
body) and used to inform the Brightstowe teaching and learning
policy. Please see enclosed CD for full-sized version of the research
poster.
Above: Brightstowe News screen-shot of ’transition evening’ in
humanities whereby students from feeder primary schools are
able to sample taster lessons and meet the staff, so as to
streamline the move to Brightstowe from our local primary
schools.

19. St Ivo School Geography Department – SGQM Application – Supporting Evidence
Ev13-D1c – Work with the wider education community and other agencies
Becoming involved with the Prince’s Teaching Institute Geography Schools Programme has enabled us to gain access to a plethora of good practice
through their ‘own-line’ staffroom and face to face meetings at school programme days. This is helping to enhance our own geography curriculum whilst
being able to give something back – evidenced here is a document produced by Rob Chambers to share with Geography teachers at the Schools
Programme residential in July 2013
More details of
our action plan
for our work for
the Prince’s
Teaching
Institute mark
are evidenced in
our Centre of
Excellence bid.

20. We work with a wide range of partners as evidenced by this sample page from our
Collaborative Working Document .
EVIDENCE 13a (D1c)
MMU Request for
PGCE students to
observe lessons in a
‘flagship Geography
Department’.
This document is
updated termly to
provide evidence of
our work with other
organisations for
SLT.

21. Deep Learning Activity
Week 2013 ‘The Great
British Challenge ‘ – every
form in the school was
involved in producing a
huge GB map, decorating
form rooms and
representing a British city
in the procession. The
Geography Department
played a big role in the
organisation.
In 2014, the theme for the
event is ‘Countries of the
Commonwealth’.

22. Examples of displays
from the whole-
school procession,
demonstrating
geographical
activities and the
development of
locational knowledge
across the school.