Centre of Excellence

I have just spent two hot and humid days in the company of colleagues at GA HQ in Sheffield. Our daunting task was to make important decisions based on the portfolios of evidence that hundreds of colleagues had spent hundreds of hours carefully compiling as part of the process of going through the Secondary Geography Quality Mark.

This is a process of departmental self evaluation, which is then endorsed by the awarding of the Quality Mark for three years if the criteria are met appropriately. There is also the opportunity to submit evidence for a Centre of Excellence award if the department thinks that they are doing appropriate additional outreach work.

Here are some examples of what schools that gained the Centre of Excellence in the past were doing. This might be useful for departments who are considering applying, and also for those who are not...

Remember that this was in addition to the 'usual' things that the departments were undertaking...
  • Gained Fairtrade School status
  • Set up a departmental website with parent liaison and student work celebrated, such as the Fitzwimarc School's Geoggers website which we saw yesterday

  • Led Transition events which go beyond brief visits and sample lessons, but involve extended enquiries and involve the students in addition to the teachers, and possibly involve one of the GA's PRIMARY GEOGRAPHY CHAMPIONS
  • Attending Royal Geographical Society and Geographical Association events, and involvement in projects such as Young People's Geographies.
  • Publication of Newsletters which are sent to feeder schools regularly 
  • Press releases for significant events prepared and sent out to local newspapers to publicise the work of the department
  • Involvement in other funded projects and opportunities, such as BBC News School Report
  • Invite inspirational speakers into school
  • Involvement in cross-curricular projects, particularly where there are public performances of art, drama, dance, music etc that have grown out of geographical events and processes
  • International School Award application
  • Extra curriculur activities: Duke of Edinburgh's Award, Geography Club, Eco Club etc.
  • Eco-school Award application
  • Use of Mission Explore books for a full school day, which involved feeder primaries, or as part of departmental resource
  • A major transition project which closely linked schools with feeder primaries
  • Involvement in Earth Hour and other global events
  • Organising network meetings for schools - see the RGS-IBG networks led by CGeogs for ideas
  • Invite a Geography Ambassador from the RGS-IBG scheme
  • Involvement with Initial Teacher Education, or as a Teaching School
  • Involvement in SSAT events and networks
  • Comprehensive resources available on the VLE and made available on open access, or guest access to colleagues and students from other schools - a great example of this is the Wycombe High School scheme for Year 7 which is superb
  • Involvement in Teachmeets or hosting a Teachmeet in school
  • Support for, and involvement in the local Geographical Association branch
  • 'A' level visits to Universities and cultivation of further links here
  • Involvement with AST, whether as part of the departmental staff, or as part of county support
  • Involvement in / hosting of GA Worldwise Quiz (leading to involvement in Worldwise Challenge)
  • Development of CSI Geography day - crime focus for whole school
  • Fund-raising for a significant project which leads to staff / student exchanges
  • Geography 'Colours' awarded (why should it just be the PE department who does this) or a tie for geography achievement...
There were plenty more ideas, but some of those might get you thinking...

Those schools that applied will hear in the next few months about whether they have been successful...
And it's not too early to get your application started for 2012...

Comments

Victoria said…
Thanks for this post Alan - we're starting to work towards the Quality Mark and this list made me realise that we already do lots of good stuff that I might not necessarily have thought about including, as well as giving me ideas of other things we could do.
Alan Parkinson said…
Thanks Victoria - good news that you are thinking of applying for the Secondary Quality Mark :)