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New A-Level Geography Specifications: Key Changes and Implications

This review of the new A-Level Geography specifications, as presented by Bob Digby, outlines the significant revisions made for the first time since 2000. Key updates include a reduction from seven to four available specifications, a focus on compliance with assessment criteria, and the elimination of coursework. The implications of these changes on student assessment, fieldwork integration, and overall geography education are discussed, alongside concerns regarding the breadth and depth of study. Insights from Eleanor Rawling and Simon Oakes provide a critical analysis of the evolving landscape of geography in schools.

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New A-Level Geography Specifications: Key Changes and Implications

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  1. Reviewing the new A level specifications Bob Digby Community Geographer, Geographical Association

  2. Key changes • Revisions to A levels for the first time since 2000 • More than just new specifications – an expression of the subject for the next few years • Time scale: first teaching from 2008, first AS/A2 awards in 2009/2010 • Compliance with QCA subject criteria e.g. ‘stretch and challenge’ and a new A* award. • One specification allowed per Board; so 4 available in England and Wales instead of the previous 7. • 4 modules not 6; can be taken any time or as a linear qualification. • The death of coursework.

  3. Questions • Will change actually reduce the burden of assessment? Or will the Boards shoe-horn 6 modules’ content into 4? • Will the removal of coursework impact upon the number of candidates in Geography? • What happens to fieldwork in schools? Can the exam boards preserve fieldwork as an integral part of Geography? • We now have a generation of exam-wise 16-18 year-olds – but are they better geographers?

  4. Has Geography had a facelift in the new specifications? Eleanor Rawling’s lecture at the 2005 GA conference highlighted ten concerns • Forces of change & public concerns about e.g. globalisation, global warming • Spatial awareness of e.g. the ‘new’ Europe • Scale & scale linkage – inter-connectedness • Environmental Interaction – footprints and management • Technology – opportunities for GIS • Greater curriculum flexibility, choice & freedom needed • Special contribution to global concepts e.g. sustainability • Geographical enquiry – active questioning approach, less didactic • Significant changes in university geography (cultural, ethnographic, place….) • ‘14-19 awarding bodies have tended to standardise content…fear that innovation will lose customers anxious to play safe & maintain high grades’

  5. How should the subject be updated? • Simon Oakes research into the School-HEI ‘Gap’ (2006) highlights several issues including: • Human geography in school ‘out of step’ • Theory levels are poor (compare Sociology) • Learning tends to be ‘case-study based’, not theoretical - focused on ‘facts, not thinking’ • Little critical questioning of concepts at A level- e.g. of sustainability

  6. The new specifications • Content of AS versus A2 • Assessment type at AS and A2 • Styles and Flexibility of assessment • Assessment load • Where’s the fieldwork? • Guidance for teachers? • How fresh or up-to-date? • How much choice?

  7. What kind of content at AS?

  8. What kind of assessment at AS?

  9. What kind of content at A2? Unit 3

  10. What kind of content at A2? Unit 4

  11. What kind of assessment at A2?

  12. Progression in assessment AS to A2?

  13. How much assessment? How flexible?

  14. Where’s the fieldwork or research?

  15. How much guidance is there for teachers?

  16. How fresh or up-to-date are the new specs?

  17. How much freedom of choice is there?

  18. Final thoughts?

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