The challenge for subjects like geography
Research recognises teacher quality as the most important factor that influences student achievement.[1] Over the last few years, the government has reformed and invested in pre-service and in-service teacher training in England via frameworks for initial teacher education (ITE) and early careers teachers as well as National Professional Qualifications.[2] This is with the aim of developing high-quality classroom practitioners, raising school standards and improving student outcomes.
However, this investment is somewhat short-sighted, as the generic nature of these programmes and the ‘partial’ evidence base on which they rely[3] fails to adequately develop the breadth of knowledge needed by a subject-specialist teacher. Furthermore, it does not solve some of the significant issues facing teaching and teachers today.
We aim to outline a few of these issues and their implications for teachers of geography. Other subjects are just as affected by teacher recruitment quality and quantity, especially those that are hard to recruit or excluded from the government’s English Baccalaureate (EBacc) selection of subjects. Some key issues are as follows:
- Teacher recruitment continues to be below target, this has been the case for 11 of the last 12 years[4] and the supply gap means that there are not enough subject specialists to teach geography in our secondary schools.
- As geography is a hard-to-recruit subject (only reaching 56.5% of its target[5]), those recruited do not always have a geography or alternative cognate degree, which puts additional demands on school mentors, teacher educators and ITE providers.
- As geography continues to be a popular school subject, with provisional GCSE geography entries at a record high of 287,610 this year[6] and a growing secondary pupil population, geography lessons need to be staffed. However, geography specialists tend to prioritise examination classes (Key Stages 4 and 5), leaving more Key Stage 3 lessons to be taught by non-specialist teachers.[7]
The need for bespoke professional development
As representatives of the Geographical Association (GA), the subject association for geography, we contend that all teachers – but particularly non-specialist teachers working in primary and secondary contexts – need bespoke professional development to improve their knowledge base to confidently teach outside their own specialism.
This is also recognised in the most recent geography Ofsted report[8], which also notes that the greatest professional development need is for planning effective fieldwork, the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and teaching procedural knowledge. Teachers therefore need guidance as to the best subject-specific information and the most relevant professional development that will support the classes they teach and which focuses on what to teach and how.