Geographical Association/DfES Primary Geography Project

1
Geographical Association/DfES Primary Geography
Project

• Final Report
• Peckover School, Wisbech

2
Thinking process

• When I returned from the Introductory session for
  the project, I think the whole school could feel
  my enthusiasm! I took a slot at the following
  Mondays staff meeting to fill everyone in on
  what I had found out and to ask for volunteers
  who would be interested in working with me on the
  project.
• Our newly qualified Year 3 teacher came forward,
  and told me that her next Unit of Work, from the
  Cambridgeshire Scheme of Work, was Investigating
  Settlement and that she was feeling very
  uninspired by the whole thing, and not sure where
  to start!

3
Thinking Process

• We looked through the Unit for an activity that
  we felt could be enhanced to use on the
  Interactive Whiteboard. There were many
  possibilities! We decided on

Key questions/ ideas/ concepts Teaching/learning activities Resources Key vocabulary
Why are settlements built? Compare photographs and written information for two different settlements. What could you do in these settlements? What jobs do people do? Photographs of two different settlements, text, brochures. Seaside resort, market, industry, university
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Thinking Process

• This aspect of the unit was chosen for a couple
  of reasons. The first being there seemed to be a
  lot of obstacles to other options. For example,
  we wanted to create an imaginary map, but
  couldnt find any suitable map symbols to
  download, despite looking for a very long time on
  various websites!
• Secondly we decided that it would be a good idea
  to introduce an Interactive Whiteboard session
  close to the beginning of the Unit, to ensure the
  childrens interest was maintained.

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The Lesson!

• The lesson consisted of a Smart Notebook with
  maps of both Hunstanton and Cambridge. The maps
  were found on the Ordnance Survey website Get a
  Map. It also had a mixed selection of pictures
  from both places. These came from Google.
• The children were asked to place the pictures on
  the correct map and give their reasons for their
  choices. As a follow-up to the Smart Notebook
  session, a hyperlink was created on each map, to
  a website about the place. Children could then
  investigate the site to find out if their
  opinions about each settlement were correct.

6
Evaluation

• I decided to evaluate the impact of the
  Interactive Whiteboard in two ways through a
  lesson observation and a pupil questionnaire.
• I also had some very positive feedback from
  children just talking to me in the corridor! They
  thanked me for making the Smart Notebook for them
  and told me how much they had enjoyed using it.

7
Next steps

• Tackle any obstacles that may prevent a
  Interactive Whiteboard being used for example
  the problems with finding suitable graphics
  mentioned earlier.
• Widen audience. We hope to have an Interactive
  Whiteboard in every classroom, and want them to
  be used! I need to remind teachers of the
  resources available to them, both from this
  project and the wider area software companies,
  internet etc.
• The project has been very successful, so we need
  to keep it going!