Geographical Association

Changing curricular requirements at all key stages mean that the skills necessary to plan and develop the curriculum are essential for beginning teachers. In Planning and Developing the Curriculum Parts 1 and 2, Eleanor Rawling, Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, provides an introduction to the key issues and offers practical guidance for PGCE students. Suggested templates and approaches are provided for critical consideration.

Part One considered the teacher's active and creative role in developing the curriculum at the level of courses and outline schemes of work for the key stage and year group. It covered definitions and purposes, sequences of planning, the role of concepts, and the importance of geographical enquiry in planning schemes of work.

This part will consider the different meanings of progression and will examine varied approaches to planning for progression through the subject content, the teaching and learning experiences provided and the outcomes in pupils' performance.

All of the diagrams contained in this Think Piece come from Eleanor Rawling's book Planning Your Key Stage 3 Geography Curriculum. If you find this Think Piece useful, it is highly recommended that you purchase this book as it develops many of the ideas here to a much deeper level. You may purchase the book from our GeographyShop.

The activities for this Think Piece, together with links to papers, diagrams and frameworks which are referred to in the activities, are contained within an accompanying document. NB Activities 1 – 7 were related to Planning and Developing the Curriculum Part 1. Download: Word PDF

• What do we mean by progression?
• Progression in relation to the inherent structure of the subject
• Progression in relation to the curriculum experiences planned
• Progression in relation to pupils' performance
• Making progress in geography
• References
• Links

'The object of any act of learning, over and above the pleasure it may give, is that it should serve us in the future. Learning should not only take us somewhere: it should allow us later to go further more easily' (Bruner, 1965)

How can you be sure that the curriculum you plan will 'take students somewhere' and help them to 'go further' or make progress with their geography?

First, here are some definitions and explanations. According to any good dictionary, 'progress' is a noun meaning improvement, development and/or moving forward and so with progression we have the act of improving or moving forward. In an educational context, we want pupils, as Bruner suggests, to improve and to be capable of moving further forward. Note that this may refer in a general way to improving the skills and abilities fostered through education (intellectual, social and practical skills such as solving problems, working with others, using word-processing software) but it can also refer to the improvement of subject specific knowledge and skills (for example, understanding location, knowing about places in the news and using maps in geography). As geography educators we want pupils to do both. We want them to improve their general skills and abilities through geography. We also want them to become better in geography itself. This is worth remembering when you are faced with plans for generic, skills-based curricula. You will need to ensure that the plans allow progress to be made in the subject as well as in general skills. But that, of course, leads back to asking what is meant by progress in geography!

It is important to distinguish between three different ways of talking about progression in a subject: 1. progression in relation to the inherent structure of the subject; 2. progression in relation to the curriculum experiences planned by the teacher; and 3. progression in pupil performance. These will be dealt with in turn.

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Progression in this sense would be related to setting out a hierarchy of concepts/ideas and skills which form the essential elements of the subject to guide curriculum construction, i.e. the structure of the subject. Progress may be assumed if pupils are able to move up the hierarchy of ideas and skills. For example, the teacher might plan for pupils to work first with location and pattern in specific cases before they move on to generalise about spatial principles and the concept of space by applying them in new situations.

There has not been a great deal of work done on subject structure since the 1970s when Norman Graves (1975, 1979), the Geography 16-19 Project (1987) and Her Majesty's Inspectorate (DES 1978) attempted to provide meaningful discussions of geography's structure to aid curriculum planning. Given that we now have key concepts listed in the KS3 programme of study, it might be a good time to do some more thinking about how these help us to understand the subject and plan the curriculum. Academic geographers have been writing about key concepts (Holloway, Rice and Valentine 2003) and their work provides useful insights. It is not that we are likely to want to teach the abstract structure and the key concepts of geography directly to our pupils. Essentially, the argument is that if we, as teachers understand our subject better, we are better placed to plan out appropriate experiences for pupils so that they can be engaged in arriving at general ideas appropriate to their level of understanding.

The concepts and big ideas of the subject represent useful ways of organising our thinking about the subject if geography is not just to be a mass of memorised fact. After all, as Bruner noted, 'knowledge one has acquired without sufficient structure to tie it together is knowledge that is likely to be forgotten' (1965). One way of getting to grips with a big key concept is to 'deconstruct it' by teasing out the network of smaller ideas and generalisations that lie beneath it. For example, Lambert (2007) and Bennetts (2008) provide valuable analyses of some of the more specific ideas which underpin the key National Curriculum concepts of place, space, scale (Lambert) and environmental interaction and sustainable development (Bennetts).

Activity 8 - Using concepts as a planning aid
In this activity students will use Bennett's article to explore the significant ideas and generalizations that are essential to the understanding of the concept of 'environmental interaction and sustainable development'.
Download: Word PDF

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Progress will be apparent if pupils are ready for more demanding teaching and learning experiences. For example, having studied one locality where people of a different culture live, pupils may move on to study a range of places and cultures at different scales and in different parts of the world. Or, having mapped the distribution of migrants in a country, pupils might go on to carry out a statistical analysis of the data or to read biographical details of migrants. Figure 4 (second column) gives examples of curriculum experiences appropriate for developing cultural diversity.

Activity 9 - Planning for progression
In this activity students use a framework to consider planning for understanding the concept of cultural understanding and diversity at different key stages.
Download: Word PDF

Activity 9 is concerned with progression at the scale of the classroom. It is also worth considering curriculum progression at a much more general 'key stage' scale. Back in the late 1980s when the first version of the National Curriculum was being planned, the government appointed Geography Working Group had a broad vision of curriculum progression moving from predominantly local and school-based experiences at key stage 1 through local, regional and UK topics at key stage 2 to a much more widely based geography involving study at local, regional, other national, international and global scales at key stages 3 and 4. It even began to allocate suitable topics to each age group, using criteria (or what Bennetts, 2005, calls 'dimensions of understanding') such as increasing depth and breadth of study to make the choices. This was a sound beginning for thinking about curriculum progression. Indeed the section on progression in the Geography Working Group's report (1989) is still a useful summary of points to consider and is repeated here.

Progression may be recognized in relation to:

• Increasing breadth of study
• Wider range of scales studied
• Greater complexity of phenomena studied
• Increasing use made of generalized knowledge and abstract ideas
• Greater precision required in undertaking intellectual and practical tasks
• More mature awareness and understanding of issues and of the context of differing attitudes and values within which they arise.

However, because the relationship between curriculum and assessment was not understood, all this got lost in the immense detail of overlapping topics planned for the National Curriculum published in 1991. As a result any clear line of progression was lost and by the late 1990s the National Curriculum, as taught, was characterised by considerable unnecessary overlap of content. In particular, popular topics like rivers and rainforests seemed to appear in every key stage without any clear view of how the teaching or the topics might differ. Pupils frequently felt that they'd 'already done this!'

In his article entitled 'The Links Between Understanding, Progression and Assessment in the Secondary Geography Curriculum', Bennetts (2005) presents a useful discussion of the difficulties of maintaining continuity in the broad topics covered whilst, at the same time, ensuring a sequence of content and skills appropriate to the capabilities of pupils.

Activity 10 - Progression from KS3 to GCSE
In this activity students, using Bennett's ideas, consider the differences between teaching a topic at KS3 and KS4.
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One way of holding in mind a broad view of curriculum progression through the key stages is to outline the character and intentions of each key stage. So, for example, one suggestion would be:

Key Stage 1 – is about establishing the foundations for learning, predominantly using pupil's personal, family and local experiences as the starting points for geography
Key Stage 2 – is about moving out to new challenges drawing on the wider local, regional, national and overseas experiences of pupils and introducing some of the traditional areas of geography such as physical, human and environmental.
Key Stage 3 - is about building confidence, capability and inspiration by ensuring a sound introduction to the basic content, methods and skills of geography, but at the same time ensuring that pupils are inspired and enthused by the subject and its relevance to their lives.
Key Stage 4 – is about promoting participation, citizenship and new possibilities by emphasising the contribution and value of geography to pupils as they seek to understand and participate as young citizens in the world around them.
Post-16 (KS5) - is about ensuring opportunities for specialism and scholarship by providing sufficient depth and breadth of geographical study for students to have access to important ideas and approaches in the subject and to have the opportunity to undertake substantive critical analysis.

These descriptions do not tell you what content to teach but they do provide a broad but clear focus for differentiating between the key stages and a guide to choosing appropriate content. You may find this a helpful way of thinking when planning your key stage 3 curriculum.

Figure 8 presents a progression map produced by an 11-16 school involved in teaching the pilot GCSE in 2004-05 (now adapted as OCR 'B'). The school has attempted to map out a broad overview of how KS4/GCSE will build on KS3 and on KS2 (from information from feeder schools). The headings of scale of study, content focus, concepts highlighted and enquiry activity have been used.

Ideally some kind of progression statement should underlie all the national frameworks. In practice, the timing of the 14-19 review, with A level being reviewed before GCSE, made this difficult. However, with the greater flexibility at KS3, there is no reason why your geography department cannot map out its selection of GCSE and AS/A level content and ensure a coherent progression from KS3.

Activity 11 - Creating a progression map
In this activity students consider a document which maps out progression and relate it to their own experiences.
Download: Word PDF

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Relates to setting out of the key features of the kind of performance we expect to see in a pupil's work as she/he makes progress in geography i.e. the outcomes of teaching and learning. Progress will be seen as pupils demonstrate these features at increasing levels of achievement. The level descriptions are this kind of statement. They explain, for example, how pupils can be seen to make progress from level 4 to level 5 if they move from 'understanding that people can both damage and improve the environment' (4) to 'understanding some ways that human activities cause environments to change' (5).

Much attention has been given to outcomes over the last 20 years and there are numerous examples of outcomes-based performance descriptions. We have the level descriptions themselves, the expectations given in schemes of work, the GCSE and A level grade criteria and a range of mark schemes and criteria for specific units of work. These are all different kinds of instrument produced for different purposes. Strangely, perhaps, despite (or perhaps because of) all this activity, there remains a considerable amount of misunderstanding about what all these items are and how we should use them. Top of the list in this respect are the level descriptions, which were clearly written as broadly-based descriptions meant to be applied only in a best-fit way at the end of the key stage course. The paper 'Progression and Assessment' in Geography at KS3 by Rawling and Westaway (1996), then Geography Officers with QCA, provides a discussion and practical examples of the intended use of level descriptions at KS3, which is still relevant in 2009-10. Despite the intentions, level descriptions are now frequently used as termly grading instruments or, worse, as marking criteria for individual items.

Figure 9 sets out one way of distinguishing all these different outcomes-based statements and descriptions. They are best viewed in a hierarchy.

Subject-specific. At the top of the hierarchy should be an agreed understanding of the nature of the subject and its contribution to 3-19 education. To some extent, the 'importance of geography' statement in the new KS3 PoS is attempting to do this. Although it is written with KS3 in mind, it could be developed as a more general statement relevant to all phases and levels of education.

Phase specific. Next down would be the kind of broad progression framework or statement relating to and describing the characteristics of a broad curriculum area or phase – so, for example, the higher education benchmark statement for undergraduate geography is a good example. The benchmark statement is described as 'providing a means for the academic community to describe the nature and characteristics of programmes in a specific subject or subject area. They also represent 'general expectations about standards' (Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) definition). For example, a typical student should be able to 'demonstrate comprehension of the nature of change within human environments' and 'illustrate and discuss the contested and provisional nature of knowledge and understanding'.

The new A level and GCSE subject criteria are also phase-specific statements, though they are very minimal and leave a lot of flexibility. Such broad frameworks should help in ensuring some degree of standardisation about what is expected in geography at this level, as courses are prepared.

Course/curriculum-specific. Below this lie expectations of performance for a particular course or curriculum. The level descriptions are the best example of this, meant to describe performance in relation to the whole 5-14 curriculum. The level descriptions are described in the 1999 programme of study as 'providing the basis for making judgments about pupils' performance at the end of key stages 1, 2, and 3.' A level performance descriptions and GCSE grade criteria are another example. Course specific expectations are aids to recognising and comparing pupils' performance across the teaching and learning community.

This summary may help you to understand and use the level descriptions and it provides a more detailed outline of progression in performance in geography developed from them.

Topic-specific. Performance criteria or expectations written to relate to a particular topic are a more detailed form of pupil outcome. The expectations in the DfES/QCA scheme of work are examples of these. Such expectations assist teachers in recognising and awarding achievement with respect to work on a particular topic. For example, the expectation for typical performance in relation to Geography Unit 12, Images of a Country, is that most pupils 'will describe and explain that a text/image does not show the complete picture; use a variety of methods to interpret images (e.g. Development Compass Rose, DCR); suggest relevant geographical questions using the DCR; identify positive and negative images of their own locality and of Brazil and explain their views; accurately use the terms stereotype and sustainable development; recognise how they might improve their observational skills'.

Task-specific. There are criteria or mark schemes developed for particular tasks or test items. These serve to standardise the awarding of marks in relation to a specific task or activity. Sometimes these are level-related or banded mark schemes. For example, a question in one of the pilot GCSE Geography examinations was focused on the process of landscape formation. The mark scheme gave examiners some suggestions of the detailed points to give credit for but also provided a three level scheme:

• Level 1 - one or two basic statements. Lacks knowledge and understanding beyond basics (award 1-3 marks)
• Level 2 - some knowledge of features and basic idea about formation. Lacks terminology and range (award 4-6 marks)
• level 3 - Sound knowledge and understanding of physical processes in the landscape with named features. Effective use of terminology. (award 7-8 marks).

The assessment tasks for the optional units of the pilot GCSE are also marked according to level-related descriptions.

Pupil-specific. Finally, if appropriate, a teacher could also provide performance statements focused on individual pupils and these might help to personalise the learning by identifying the strengths and weaknesses of an individual pupil with a view to providing assistance.

Activity 12 - Progression and level descriptionsIn this activity students study outcome statements for GCSE and A Level specifications and also apply the National Curriculum Level descriptions to examples of students' work.
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Finally, Figure 10 is a more diagrammatic and dynamic way of envisaging progression which brings together elements of all three approaches to progression considered above. It is intended to show how, through study of chosen content using a geographical enquiry approach and skills (the teaching and learning experiences provided), pupils move towards understanding of the key concepts (representing the inherent structure of the subject). The shape of the diagram draws attention to the gradually widening base of students' experience of places, themes, issues and scales of enquiry. The reference to levels highlights the outcomes expected of pupils as set out in the level descriptions.

Activity 13 - Using a diagram to plan for progression
In this activity students evaluate the extent to which a planning diagram can help them plan for progression.
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A thorough understanding of the term 'progression' is fundamental to curriculum development, because it lies at the heart of knowing the subject, making decisions about sequencing content, providing suitable teaching/learning experiences and recognising appropriate levels of achievement for pupils.

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Bennetts, T. (2005) 'The Links between Understanding, Progression and Assessment in the Secondary School Curriculum', Geography, 90, 2, pp.152-70.

Bennetts, T (2008) 'Improving Geographical Understanding at KS3', Teaching Geography, 33, 2, pp. 55-60.

Bruner, J. S. (1965) The Process of Education. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

DES (1978) The Teaching of Ideas in Geography, some suggestions for middle and secondary years of schooling; a discussion paper. London: HMSO.

Naish, M., Rawling, E., & Hart, C. (1987) Geography 16-19; the contribution of a curriculum development project to 16-19 education. Harlow: Longman/SCDC.

Graves, N. (1979) Curriculum Planning in Geography. Oxford: Heinemann.

Holloway, S., Rice, S., & Valentine, G. (2003) Key Concepts in Geography. London: Sage Publications.

Rawling, E. (2007) Planning Your KS3 Curriculum, Sheffield: Geographical Association.

Rawling, E. & Westaway, J. (1996) 'Progression and Assessment in Geography at KS3', Teaching Geography, 21, 3,

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Planning Your Key Stage 3 Curriculum - Extra Resources - resources linked to the book Planning Your KS3 Curriculum including a ready-to-use version of the KS3 PoS, templates for planning a KS3 course plan and a scheme of work.

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(Updated 13.08.09)