King's College London

Taking place every Monday from 5:30 to 6:30pm GMT, the sessions will be recorded, so that it will be possible to listen again or catch up if people are not able to attend ‘live’.

The Geography PGCE programme is in its second year at King's College London. Led by Dr Lizzie Rushton, it is supported by Dr Cyrus Nayeri who is Visiting Tutor at KCL and Head of Geography at Dulwich College.

Here, Dr Rushton tells us more about the event series (poster of the series available to download here). 

1. What are you aiming to achieve with this event series?

We want to provide the geography teacher community at KCL and beyond with the opportunity to explore some of the key themes in secondary school geography education. We are so fortunate at King's to work in partnership with such a diverse range of schools and this series of twilights is a small way to contribute to those mentors and teachers who support our PGCE students.

We are hoping that the twilight series is useful for current PGCE students, Early Career Teachers as well as more experienced geography teachers as a way to support their own continuing professional development. We are hoping that those who attend this first series will suggest ideas and speakers for future sessions, including contributing themselves as we know the geography teacher community is one which constantly seeks to develop new ideas and approaches, a bit like the subject itself.

2. Why are these themes and topics important for geography teachers to consider and reflect on?

A key theme we consider during this series of twilights is environmental education and the climate emergency. The recent COP26 summit has highlighted the crucial role that education has in the context of the climate crisis and the geography classroom is an important opportunity for young people to learn about climate change.

The session led by Paul Turner shares ideas about teaching in the context of the climate emergency and Dr Meryl Batchelder explores how teachers can use both cross-curricular and extra-curricular activities with a focus on environmental education.

Another key part of being a geography teacher is of course fieldwork and Dr Lynda Yorke will provide a fantastic insight into how to make fieldwork inclusive for all young people. A session which will be of value to everyone at any stage of their career is that given by Dr Liz Taylor which considers how to develop consistency in lesson planning – this is fundamental to teachers of every subject.

Finally, we are delighted that Dr Cyrus Nayeri will be leading a session on how geography teachers can support their students to write for Routes – The Journal for Student Geographers. Routes was founded by Dr Nayeri and myself in April 2020 and so far, has published over 40 articles written by undergraduate and sixth form (16-18 year old) authors.

List of talks: 

• 17 January: Teaching the climate emergency - Paul Turner 
• 24 January: The right thing for the right reason: Consistency in lesson planning - Dr Liz Taylor
• 31 January: Using routes in the classroom - Dr Cyrus Nayeri
• 21 February: Promoting environmental education in schools through extracurricular and cross-curricular opportunities - Dr Meryl Batchelder 
• 7 March: On inclusive fieldwork - Dr Lynda Yorke

Access the sessions directly on Microsoft Teams by following this link.