Remind yourself of the specification requirements for ‘My Place – Living in the UK today’ - see Teachers’ Resource Guide. (The area that you select as your content will depend on the location, site and situation of your school.) This place-based study involves the use of place to describe, explore, explain and analyse issues. For example, the plan prepared by Lisa Mitchell of Meridian School, Royston (see pages 18-23 of Teachers’ Guide). Other ideas can be found through the Rivendell Group’s thinking.
The key is to explore global, international, national and regional connections and interconnections through the local. The paper presented by Professor Doreen Massey (Open University) to the GA’s 2002 Conference is helpful here. In addition, a PowerPoint presentation could be used to explain aspects of Professor Massey’s thinking.
The key idea is to deliver ‘Living in the UK today’ through a place based context (e.g. What are the issues, patterns, processes, flows and links that inform how your place looks and functions? How does the look of your place help inform how it, in turn, links to these global flows and processes?) To do this candidates will need to view their place in a different way to any previous local study. Their prior learning will be of value, but the resources used need to take them beyond the local through the local. (e.g. What are the big issues connected with your place? How does thinking geographically (considering flows, boundaries, physical layout and geographical imaginations) inform understanding about your place?)
The GA’s Valuing Places explores ways of teaching about places with a view to developing candidates’ understanding of global interconnectedness. The CPD work that has been developed could be useful when planning your ‘My place – Living in the UK today’ theme.
Focus for study
Within this theme, candidates will normally use their own locality and community as a starting point to explore:
- the processes affecting the changing geography of their own lives
- the links and connections which the local community has with its region, the nation and the wider world
- the UK’s changing identity and character.
- exploring candidates’ personal geographies
- using local community links and experiences
- undertaking fieldwork in the local area
- arranging visits from local people/organisations
- making links with citizenship.
The study of ‘My place – Living in the UK today’ is likely to draw on all five concepts (i.e. uneven development, interdependence, futures, sustainability and globalisation), but it provides particular opportunities for candidates to explore and appreciate:
- uneven development – candidates should compare, contrast and explain the
- similarities and differences between places and explain the consequences of uneven development (e.g. uneven development can be explored when considering the UK’s countries and regions and the key issues affecting them)
- interdependence – candidates should understand and explain the multi-dimensional links between places, whether social, economic, political or environmental, and the different scales at which the causes and effects of these links operate (e.g. interdependence can be explored when investigating the links between the local place and community and that of other places, and the UK as a whole)
- futures – candidates should be able to identify and evaluate possible future scenarios for the local place; this can also be linked to the concept of sustainability and Local Agenda 21
- globalisation – candidates should understand and explain how their place is linked to other locations regionally, nationally and globally, they should be able to identify similarities and differences between places.
Do you have teaching and learning ideas related to any aspects of this theme? Email them to Phil Wood - we’ll consider adding them to these pages.
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