CPD Projects
Angus Willson has been an active member of Geographical Association for over thirty years and has been a GA consultant for a series of projects over the years. For more details from the GA, the leading professional subject association, on the consultants scheme read here.
Broken links beloe have now been removed.
School improvement through global learning
This Geographical Association course will enable teachers to develop their own understanding of global issues and the knowledge needed to engage with and critique them and in addition, using a range of practical activities and teaching ideas, create opportunities for students to develop their knowledge and understanding and explore alternative models of development and sustainability through enquiry and critical thinking about global issues.
Community Cohesion and Geography
This consists of two online CPD courses.
It explores the relationships between community cohesion and diversity and some key geographical concepts and processes. It will help teachers to think about the contribution geography makes towards their school’s duty to promote community cohesion.
The course starts from the viewpoint that geography is a place-based manifestation of the concepts relating to community cohesion and diversity. As such, it is part of the experience of young people in what the Geographical Association terms ‘living geography‘.
Building Sustainable Communities
See further details of this project here >
Sustainability and Citizenship Special Interest Group
Angus was the chair of the S&C-SIG.
Read more here >
Older projects
With the RGS-IBG, the GA coordinated an Action Plan for Geography (APG) funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF).
The APG website includes an online CPD unit prepared by Angus Willson based on the sustainable communities project called Places People Want. This site has now been closed.
New Secondary Curriculum
The DCSF funded CfBT Education Trust, QCA, and the Geographical Association to provide support and guidance on the new secondary curriculum. Angus Willson had a role as regional subject adviser (London) and it included a round of regional conferences and web-resources (now archived). The second phase offered support to existing local teacher networks. A third phase involved a further series of regional conferences on key stage 3 curriculum making run with a mix of other subject associations.
Places people want
With funding from the Academy for Sustainable Communities (now the Skills and Knowledge team of the Housing and Communities Agency), Angus Willson was leader of a GA Living Geography project with teachers looking at aspects of settlement.
Diploma Support Programme
On behalf of the GA, Angus Willson has written three CPD units to support subject specialist teachers involved in the new Diploma courses. They were intended for the Diploma Support Programme website (now closed). The fourth-tranche of diplomas including ‘Humanities and Social Sciences’ has now been scrapped.
GeoWeb.tv
GeoWeb.tv is an online video archive containing film clips and linked teaching resources for a range of geography topics. On behalf of the Geographical Association Angus reviewed a series of clips and suggested the parameters for their use within classroom lesson-sequences. GA members will have reliable access to a steadily expanding library of high quality video. The collection is curated by the GA and facilitated by Pumpkin Interactive.
This website appears to be closed.
The GA is the membership organisation for geography teachers and ITE tutors in England and Wales. In addition to staff based in Sheffield, it has a number of teacher consultants working in a variety of different roles.
Weblinks [opens in a new window]:
Geographical Association