GA CONFERENCE 2005
"Placing Places"
University of Derby - 30th March - 1st April
Wednesday 30th March
Long drive cross country, to check in to the hotel. Met up with Val & Allyson for coffee, & previewed the next few days, then down to meet up with Ian, and off to Pride Park. A few 'creative' bits of driving in the Derby rush hour (one way systems eh ?)
Out finally to the new Derby football ground in the rain. Up to the conference suite, with a rather nice view from the halfway line of the pitch below. Ian Murray picked up a Highly Commended award for his Geography Photos site, and Liz Taylor won a Gold award for her excellent 'Re-Presenting Geography' book. Prizes presented by Sky weather-man Francis Wilson (guest vocalist on the Jethro Tull 'Stormwatch' album)
Followed by lecture on the squatter settlements of Peru by Professor Bill Chambers. Passed on the meal, but stayed for a glass of wine and chat with David Lambert. Back to hotel to watch 2nd half of a certain football match... fell asleep.
Inner City Derby - Picture by Val Vannet. Click to enlarge.
Thursday 31st March
An early start for a day which would last for 10 hours...
Over to the conference, and parked up. Registered / collected my handbook and started the networking.
Met up with some of the SLNers, and oriented myself with where everything was in the Atrium area.
Workshop 1
Run by Alan Kinder and members of SESC (David Roberts, Tony Cassidy & Kathryn Stephenson)
This was an excellent workshop for Heads of Department (and aspiring HoDs too) - Alan started the workshop off by setting the context to the importance of MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP, and the difference between the two, and also talked about the OFSTED background.
Tony talked about the work that he had done in his department to raise the profile of the subject, and the uptake, as well as the exam performance. He has clearly hit on a lot of successful strategies, and he produced a useful document.
Kathryn took us through some of the work she had done, notably an excellent marking policy, which is now making its appearance on QCA, BECTa and various other sites as an example of good practice. The marking policy is produced for STOKESLEY SCHOOL in North Yorkshire.
Check out the resources which can be downloaded:
The group used a framework from the ICT resources which are part of the new OFSTED framework.
This workshop finished on time, and it was down the stairs to the next level of the tower to help out / take part in:
Workshop 2
'Mythconceptions' of Place
Down a flight of steps to Val Vannet's workshop for PGCE and NQT students (though I don't quite qualify as either...)
Met up with Val, who had already pretty much set up everything she needed. Started off with a session to get us warmed up by arranging ourselves into order in terms of where we were born in relation to Derby. We then explored images of other continents, and deciding whether they were FACT or OPINION / TRUE or FALSE.
Met up with Philip, former Associate Teacher in my department, who was also taking part in the workshop.
Below is an image of me taking part in the workshop, which Val took. There was also a GA photographer floating around, and images of this appeared in GA News.
Images by Val Vannet. Karrimor gilet model's own....
The second half of the session was run by Val Vannet, who looked at Mythconceptions of place with regard to Scotland. Excellent images, and available to download from the GA website.
Out and down to the GA stands for a while, and to get some refreshments.
Spent some time on the GeoProjects.co.uk stand. This is a website which is particularly aimed at supporting the development of Travel and Tourism courses, but has also started to host the subscription based KEYFILE resource. The author is Arthur Jones, although I have produced some resources for it too: watch out for them!
Bob Holland - Tourism Education Consultant was sharing the stand with Arthur Jones. Had a chat as the queue for lunchtime baguettes started to grow. Had one later on and they were rather nice...
Launch of the Longman Student Atlas. This is a tremendous resource. The publishers had a stock of atlas pre-release copies couriered in (the Atlas is printed in China) and I collected one. I'm involved in the consultation for the content of the forthcoming Key Stage 3 version of this atlas which is due to be launched in 2006 - perhaps in time for next year's conference ?
Later on was the Wine reception for delegates, and loitered around in the back of the launch of the new Longman Student Atlas for KS4. Had a glass of wine to calm the nerves... Also launch of new Primary Geography Handbook written by Steven Scoffham.
Then it was up in the lift to:
Workshop 3
That's mine. Up to the room to set up the workshop as the powerpoint and sound files were all stored on my laptop. The room started to fill up, and we seemed to have even more than the 40 or so we were expecting. Fortunately, Fred Martin had produced a large number of the necessary CD's with the resources, and excellent booklets describing the work done as part of the G&T fieldwork trip he had been involved with. Gary Dawson ran most of the session, with some group work looking at increasing the challenge of tasks which were suitable for all levels. Melissa Gardner then talked through the work done at her school, and I was then up to talk about how ICT can help. By then we were well over-running, and Fred Martin got up to talk at about the moment when we were due to finish. Sorry Fred.
Head over to the GA WEBSITE, where you can download an edited version of the powerpoint that was used in the presentation.
More networking and chats. Out to the hotel, and met up with various colleagues, and ended up in 'The Old Dolphin' in the centre of Derby for a few rather tasty pints of Black Sheep. Wandered through the CBD of Derby which had a lot of colourful events going on. A late night...
Friday 1st April
Another early start. Breakfast with Ian, Val and Allyson. Checked out of the Rangemoor, and over to the University for final time this year.
First off, it was to see 2 excellent Teacher to Teacher Sessions. These took place in a central location.
These were excellent. Sat in on the end of Daniel Raven Ellison's session on Ecological Footprinting. He gave me an excellent resource on the footprinting of London. This was produced by an organisation called BEST FOOT FORWARD.
This is called CITY LIMITS and looks at LONDON.
Tony Cassidy then presented an intriguing session on CyberGeography, which he has been working on as part of an MA assignment. Also present was Karl Donert. Tony kindly gave him a copy of an article he'd written.... Some fascinating ideas.
A little spending on the GA stall next, including the excellent new book by Keele University Geography Lecturer Peter Knight on Glaciers and Glacial landscape. Also bought copy of Primary Geography handbook.
After that, it was into a lecture session by Eleanor Rawling, giving an update on the progress in the Curriculum in Geography. Slides from this are also available on the GA Website.
A final spin round saying goodbyes to people. Chat to Daniel Ellison regarding various Video related ideas, then it was off back to Norfolk.
See you in Manchester 2006 hopefully!