Congratulations to the Geography Department, having been awarded the prestigious Secondary Geography Quality Mark with Centre of Excellence in Fieldwork.
The achievement is awarded by the Geographical Association, the leading subject association for teachers of Geography. It rewards, promotes and celebrates and improves geographical learning by recognising high standards of teaching within secondary school geography departments.
Evidence was collected by Ofelia Bueno Lopez, our Head of Geography, over the academic year and the National Moderation Team met in the summer to scrutinise all applications and are satisfied that the City of London Freemen’s School meet the relevant criteria for Centre of Excellence.
We are incredibly proud of this achievement and it is hugely deserved and a testament to the hard work throughout the years from our Geography team, Well Done.
Please find below extracts from the moderator’s comments with feedback on the department;
“Thank you for a wonderful, well-organised submission, accompanied by a thorough and detailed commentary. As you have clearly shown, Geography at your school continues to flourish. The department is extremely well led and your vision to provide a world class geography education for your pupils is evidenced in an array of interesting and innovative examples. It is no wonder that Geography continues to grow in strength and you are one of the most popular optional subjects at GCSE and A Level. Your pupils are most fortunate to experience such an assemblage of imaginative ideas and resources offered by a team of experienced and committed geography teachers. Lessons are engaging, challenging, and highlight the value of geography as a subject.”
“We were most impressed with the effectiveness of your fieldwork programme, which provides your pupils with such a multitude of exciting opportunities. ‘Geography without fieldwork is like science without experiments; the ‘field’ is the geographic laboratory where young people experience at first hand landscapes, places, people and issues, and where they can learn and practice geographical skills in a real environment. Above all, fieldwork is enjoyable’. (Bland, Chambers, Donert and Thomas, 1996, p.165) It is obvious from your evidence that pupils enjoy their fieldwork and become adept at conducting their own investigations and completing their own risk assessment very rapidly. Your development of the use of ArcGIS is most interesting, particularly how you are using it to support your fieldwork.”
“We liked the range of extracurricular activities you offer. Of note is the work you do with Missing Maps. It is most impressive that even during lockdown over 50 students continued to map voluntarily from home. Perhaps this is an indication of how your experience and passion for geography and the work you do to develop Independent Learning has indeed encouraged students to develop geography beyond the classroom in many and varied ways. The work your pupils have undertaken during lockdown further demonstrates their engagement with the subject and their ability to take the skills they have learned to the next step in their education. There is much evidence to show how your pupils are encouraged to connect new with existing knowledge, which supports their understanding of the wider geographical picture and aids the development of criticality of thought and resilience.”
