Bedrock Talks from Bedrock Learning

1. The Power of Sequenced Knowledge in Geography: In Conversation with Kate Stockings

• Bedrock Learning • Season 1 • Episode 1

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Discover how geography educator, Kate Stockings, reshapes entire curriculums and inspires a new generation of young geographers.

Welcome to the very first episode of our Literacy Works with Bedrock Learning podcast. In this first chat, we connect with  Kate Stockings, the trust lead for geography, who's spearheaded monumental changes in Key Stage 3 curriculums at two schools. Kate pulls back the curtain on this process, sharing her personal experiences and strategies for refreshing geography topics and bringing them back to life. She illuminates the importance of teamwork and collaboration in fostering curriculum development as well as the critical role that 'disciplinary literacy' plays.

Turning the tables on traditional learning, we take an intriguing look at inquiry-based education within the realm of geography. Picture your students as investigators, their curiosity ignited as they question, engage, and dive deep into the subject. We navigate the intricate terrain of teaching geography vocabulary, underlining the importance of precision and a thorough understanding of specific terms that can often be roadblocks in a student's journey to proficiency.

Wrapping up, we dive into the joys and trials of curriculum decision-making with Kate. Kate emphasizes the value of respecting diverse approaches to reach educational goals and the thoughtful decision-making behind it. We guarantee you will walk away with an enlightening insider's view of curriculum planning and development. Whether you're an educator, a geography enthusiast, or someone interested in the behind-the-scenes of curriculum planning, this is a conversation you don't want to miss!

Find more from Kate on her website, or follow her on X @kate_stockings.

Andy:

Okay, welcome to Literacy Works, the Bedrock hosted podcast that it has the primary intent of getting the experts from various subjects and various topics across the education sector straight to you and your device. We really want to get the best people on to talk about a range of things and today I'm really thrilled, actually, that we were able to kind of get hold of our first guest, actually Kate Stockings, who's a geography expert. And first of all, you know, I want to be upfront about this I want to lay the platform for the experts to speak. I want to lay the platform for the best people to say what they need to say. So welcome, Kate, and thank you for coming on.

Kate:

Thanks for having me.

Andy:

Andy, it's fantastic. I'm so pleased we got you nice and early. So first of all, if you could just give us a bit of background about you, know who you are and your role and that type of thing, I think that will be a really nice place to start.

Kate:

Yeah, absolutely so. My name is Kate Stockings, as you said, and I am a very proud geographer. I'm currently doing a trust lead role. So I've been working as my second academic year as trust lead for geography for future academies. Before that, I was full time in the classroom for seven years, of which the majority of them were head of geography. So I went to two different schools, both with very kind of a situation that required Key Stage 3 to be overhauled kind of from scratch, and I absolutely loved that, loved doing that twice in each school, and then ended up in this trust lead role, which is what I'm doing for now, still doing a fair bit of teaching, not as much as a full time head of department, but a fair bit of teaching. But alongside that, a lot of big thinking, curriculum work, a lot of coursework, a lot of fieldwork, basically just anything and everything's due to geography, which I am loving.

Andy:

Fantastic and that there's a couple of bits in there. Actually, before I move into the other bits, I want to really follow up. There is I do want to ask every guest if you weren't doing something educated related right now, what would it be and why?

Kate:

It's a very interesting question. It depends if it's a realistic alternative or not. The realistic alternative was that I always quite fancied the police. Don't know why.

Kate:

Nice I think that's quite a common answer for teachers. But yeah, I quite fancied the police. I quite fancied kind of backroom detective-y type stuff, nice. But in an absolute ideal world I would be living a life of sport and exercise, not a professional athlete, just kind of the enjoyment of a day revolving around sport and exercise and being outside. Sadly that doesn't quite add up financially, but that would be the ideal scenario.

Andy:

What sports do you play?

Kate:

Netball running cross country. Just taken over as team manager for my cross country club, so yeah mainly. Running is the main one, but I would happily do anything and everything for five days a week if that were not Lovely.

Andy:

Yeah, that would be nice, wouldn't it? Yeah, in a different world, yeah, so there's a couple of bits there before we get into the other parts as well. You said about overhaul in the Key Stage 3 curricula in a couple of different places Were they. Did you do that in a couple of different ways? Did you go about that in a similar way? How did those two curriculum projects sort of develop?

Kate:

They both happened very organically as the result of kind of the need to update the geography, and that was fundamentally the starting point was that the geography was quite dated. And the first one, we kind of had a regional study on China, but it was very outdated and didn't really reflect China as a possible future superpower. It was more a regional study of China as the largest country in the world so outdated the Horn of Africa would be another example.

Kate:

So there were those topics, again, regional studies, but quite weak in their implementation and weak in their kind of thought out of what they were intending to cover in those topics so largely outdated. But the way I took them, the two approaches I took, was very different. But to be honest, that's more a reflection on kind of my leadership and management as opposed to the geography. So the first time I did it I was a little bit like a billionaire trying to shop. I've been very honest about this in a number of different forums, kind of what you learn about middle management. And in the first school I kind of just went in and said, oh my goodness, we need to change this. The second school was much more okay. We need to change it as a team and we need to work together as a team of four.

Kate:

I was very lucky that it was the same team of four for the four years that we were together. So it was very stable and we very much went on that journey and by the time I left that curriculum at the end of those four years I was very, very proud of it and I hope the other three would say the same as well about what we achieved together and we didn't go through a tactic of one of us was on year seven, one was on year eight, one was on year nine. It was very much like this is our three year journey, which is part of the larger seven year journey, and how are we going to make that as good as possible? And so it was kind of working together on all of it. You know, some people had ownership of some schemes of work, but it wasn't, it wasn't divvied up without that connection going through. So, yeah, really really enjoyed that time and, as Head of Department, thought that my Head of Department days were possibly over, but now in this role, I'm like, oh no, maybe I'll leave you.

Andy:

I love it.

Kate:

I love it too much. Maybe I'll go back and do another couple of stints at overhaul in Key Stage 3, because it's that journey. It's that journey when you look back on it, kind of four years. I'd love to do it for longer. I'd love to stay for kind of five, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years and just reap those rewards and be like this is the result of a really, really fantastic curriculum. So we'll see.

Andy:

Well, I think that's really interesting because there has, for obvious reasons, various reasons been more of a focus on curriculum over the last few years across all subjects and the natural. When we discussed at Bedrock about putting together a podcast, the natural way in was to sort of talk about disciplinary literacy in different subjects. You know, let's do a one on this and all and that's kind of that's the thread we want to pull on. But before we get into that, I think one of the things that curriculum has really the focus on curriculum has sort of forced the agenda is for you you've reflected on it there in terms of how the journey unravels for the, for the learners, over the course of those years and then seeing how that develops. And I don't think you can really reap the benefits of quality curriculum designed for a good three, four years when the people goes through that body of knowledge. Would you agree with that in terms of really thinking about the journey that the learner has?

Kate:

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, over the last few years we've been very, very big on intent. So we saw that massive work around curriculum intents be that road maps, be that maps but fundamentally it was about the thinking what are we intending to do? And then we kind of moved on to implementation, but we've never really spoken about impact in the depth that it deserves.

Kate:

And thinking about okay, how do we actually evaluate what changes we've made to this curriculum and how do we know that we've done a good job? And, exactly as you say, you kind of reap that reward when you go through it and when you're there for a good chunk of time to see the journey, those learners go on. But also I think you reap the rewards in terms of the quality of the teaching because actually the first time you teach year seven, eight and nine, you cannot, to the best of your ability, draw those links. You just you haven't taught it. It's very, very difficult.

Kate:

You can be told what the links are and you can do your best, but it's not the absolute kind of beautiful curriculum journey that's envisaged. I would say it kind of takes, you know, you have to have done the entirety of Key Stage Three before actually you can go back to year seven and say, right now I really understand why we're doing this topic here, why we're going to revisit it in year eight and then we're going to consolidate this piece of knowledge in year nine before you go on to GCSE and ALEBOR. So I think actually we often forget that it's the quality of teaching that really improves as well. Obviously, that goes on to impact the learner as well, but actually it's about that teaching and about that teaching you can see happening in the classroom, when someone is A really confident of their curriculum and B been through it before.

Andy:

I think it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think you know certainly speaking from a middle-leader perspective myself as well, and someone who's gone in and looked at a department and looked at a curriculum and kind of been responsible for developing a new one Well, something that was missed on the 3i is the intent, implementation and impact kind of axis really was. Perhaps there wasn't enough to do with the teacher. It was all about how can we impart this onto the learner and then assess how that was done. But actually a deeper piece of thinking needs to happen around teacher development.

Kate:

Yeah.

Andy:

I think so.

Kate:

I mean, I try and avoid just using those language, because people automatically assume, as soon as you say intent and impact and implementation, they think oh, off-stead, off-stead.

Kate:

But actually they are the right words to use for what we're thinking about, and it's about a much broader rationale than just doing it for off-stead, and it's about actually what is the best curriculum we can have to deliver as teachers and for students to study and learn and be the best that they can be at our subject for however long they're studying it. For some of them, in geography, that is only three years of Key Stage 3. But for some, of them.

Kate:

That's seven years. So what are we going to do to facilitate them and to be the very best they can be at the end of A-level for those of them that do come on that seven-year journey with us?

Andy:

I certainly found that my own outcomes if that's one way of judging it my own teaching outcomes and my own results as a teacher and my classes results, for example, and my departments were improved once I started asking those questions that you were talking about there. So not just being that kind of narrow, linear journey towards one exam, but actually how can you kind of broaden the concepts, that and the deeper thinking and the deeper meaning with the subject?

Andy:

And that leads me in quite a nice stats to the kind of what I really wanted to ask you before we move into the final part of the discussion really is about what do you think is unique about the subject of geography? When it comes to what all those things you just discussed there, when it comes to things like intent and implementation, what does it mean to make a child a geographer in the 21st century?

Kate:

Yeah, it's a really good question. It's a really hard question because I think so many of us that do that, thinking about curriculum, we know what it means to be a geographer. We can just say it, but it's so much of it.

Kate:

It's so kind of intangible because you know when you're thinking like a geographer and you walk down your local high road and you're looking at the empty shops and you're looking at the street furniture and you're looking at the line scooters that have popped up and you're looking at all of that through a geographical lens and you know it has a subject expert. That's what it means to be a geographer. How do you translate that? Like intangible thinking ability, a into the classroom and B into non-specialists. It's really really difficult.

Andy:

And it's the thinking before the thinking, isn't it so? If you get a source, a geographical source, by the time you've started even reading word one on that source or you've engaged with even one tiny part of whatever the source or the information is, you're bringing so much to the table, aren't you? As you say, you're talking there about walking down the street and looking at it through the lens of a geographer. That means nothing to me, because I'm not a geographer. I can't do that, and I think, even as an English expert, I'm going into the room with all sorts of things that I'm perhaps in danger of assuming my people might know, but they don't. I think that's a really interesting point.

Kate:

Yeah, and I mean you take a kind of thing about the English equivalent. I read a book and I even enjoy the story or don't enjoy the story, and I'm very much about the plot and I actually don't like those books that are really thematic and kind of. You know, I'm thinking the ones that are you know. So about relationships, I'm there for the plot and I openly admit that. But that's because I'm not kind of a specialist in literature and in all the literacy things that go on like deeper in the book.

Andy:

Right, so geographer, plot driven. Did you watch the latest Indiana Jones film? Are you an Indiana Jones fan? Because that's got to be about, oh, that's outrageous.

Kate:

I don't watch films. It's very well it's very publicly out there.

Andy:

Really.

Kate:

It's still long enough to watch a film, so no.

Andy:

How about if, as a thank you for coming on our podcast, we get you the most the novelization of an Indiana Jones film? How would that make you feel?

Kate:

Could do. Yeah, if it's in book format, we're much more aligned there.

Andy:

But I think that's interesting. I think that's really interesting.

Kate:

Yeah, and that's what's really difficult, and it's actually particularly difficult in the age of education that we're in now, because we, as geographers, know that if you're going to be a geographer, you've got a question. You've got a question like a geographer. You've got to see that infographic or that picture or that graph that your teacher puts on the screen and you've got to question it and you say, okay, so this is the knowledge that that graph is giving me. But what knowledge is that graph not giving me? Or why did it not tell me about the future? Or not tell me about the past? And what knowledge can I bring in? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it's all about questioning, it's all about inquiry, but my goodness, has that word fallen out of fashion in the kind of broader education landscape over the last, however long? So actually, as geographers, when you ask me that question, what is a geographer?

Kate:

It's even more kind of pertinent now, in the age of retrieval practice, the age of like knowledge, and knowledge and, I'm sorry, yeah, treat me because if we're gonna create really great job first yes, of course we have to do that, but we also have to remember that to do, to be a job is to question. We have to give the students the opportunity to inquire about the world around them. And one of the hardest things in my role at the moment is kind of squaring that circle with people on the specialist who don't mean anything. They don't mean it in a kind of Rude way, but they kind of say you but Kate, inquiry learnings, not, that's not what we're doing. That does not line with what we're doing. This up, and I mean inquiry based learning in a really subject specific way and actually the fundamental part of our subject. So it's a really interesting thing to think about Full stop. But it's particularly interesting at the moment with the way through which education is, it's kind of viewed at this particular point in time.

Andy:

When I first came into teaching, but just over ten years ago, inquiry based learning was very much in vogue. It was very much kind of old big thinking, big topics, and Schools were getting pupils to undertake topics and producing for graphics nor this type of thing, and that I think they were really good Project in and of themselves. But I think one thing that was left behind at that stage, the reason why it fell out of focus, because it wasn't underpinned with enough knowledge, enough foundation of knowledge and facts. Where is, I think you make a really important point is that actually, in some ways, we've flitted too much the other way, we've gone too much the other way and we're not perhaps encouraging our young people to be as inquisitive and is inquiring and questioning as perhaps they might like that they should be to be successful in that subject right.

Kate:

Yes, you know I don't wanna speak out of dog feed, I'm not an expert in those and I agree with what you just said as a job for and for the job of the subject community. I hear what you just said and say yes, and we as a community have to be really careful. We have to be really careful that when we're in schools and being kind of, these top down policies about knowledge are coming, of course we need to erase them. Of course everything we need to do needs to be underpinned by really powerful knowledge and really clear core and hint to learn knowledge absolutely yeah but we have to keep the essence of our subject, which is to inquire about the world around us.

Kate:

Now, whether non geographers listen to this and that resonates with them, I don't know, and I say I'm not, like an expert in those subjects. For me it's just so on my radar with the geographers, because I go into quite a few classrooms where that inquiry, like for it, is kind of being lost or been weakened, is either been lost or it's been weakened. But without that, you're delivering students these geographical knowledge, but are they ever gonna be a job for all? Are they actually gonna be incredibly knowledge about the world, knowledgeable about the world, which is important, but can they do anything with that? Can they be a job? Because they can be quite to very different things. I don't have to be, but they can be.

Andy:

Yeah, I think it's something you said earlier struck a bit of an urban me. You said you hinted the idea that actually, for as long as they do the subject, that's what it's meaningful for them. You know that that's what we need to make the most of, even if it's for a couple of years or until they might drop it and not do it just whatever it is. I think that is irrelevant. It's about Giving them a meaningful experience for the time they're in the classroom to think critically and to be able to engage with the subject, with your subject that you love and which is important to you, in a way which is meaningful.

Andy:

Because I mean, I've not done geography since gcse, but I I still like to think that I have remain, I have retained some of those things since then. Not, I'm not develop them anyway like you know, a geography teacher has but I think it's important to at least expose Young people to different types of thinking. So before we do move on, I just want to ask you if you were to say, for example, look at that skill or that concept of you like of inquiry, because that's what I'm when we talked about so far what would that look like for you from seven through to the end of a level, for example. I'm not asking you to give me a whole curriculum in in two minute preci, but what does that look like in those different year groups for you?

Kate:

I think it looks like the kind of the progression of the independence of thoughts. You know, the vast majority of your sevens, when they come into our classroom I'm not very independent in their geographical thought, understandably because it hasn't been structured to them and they don't have that, that bedrock of knowledge that they need in order to ask those questions. So they don't. I don't know, I'm by. You know it's a very, it's a sweeping generalization, but let's, let's go. The vast majority of your sevens will not have studied the coastal landscape in a lot of depth, so therefore we they can't inquire about that and as a job for yet, when we teach them it and when we structure that thinking and teach them that knowledge and teach them what we know is happened in the process, is that happens at the coast, that happened at the coast? And then say, right, let's think about the future and what might change in the future. Let's think about climate change and how that might have an impact, all of that sort of stuff. They can then take that thinking and hopefully, if it's done well, apply it to a rivers landscape, or apply it to a glacier landscape, or apply it to a cold environment or hot environment, whatever it may be, but as the years go on, as they go through that seven year journey, whichever element of geography we're talking about, be it Human geography processes, physical geography processes, fieldwork processes, my and my interpretation of what it means to be a job friend, to inquire like a job, that would be to be to do it more independently, so to have less structure given to you but be able to question. So I would hope that you'd be able to take the vast majority of six farmers, for example, to a location and and say right, look around, what do we know? What do we absolutely know the geographical processes that are happening here, both physical or human or both. What do we not know but you know of in another context that we can apply here and then you know, what broader questions can we ask? What other knowledge can you draw on? And I think that that would be it for me, that kind of independence of thought, of geographical thought that we set them up for and then, ultimately, they go up to university and they're told right, right of dissertation. They can go. Yeah, cool, you know, what should I do it on? I've got so many choices. How on earth do I choose and where is it a level. You know we give them an element of choice, but it's not a completely free choice, and so that would. That would be it for me.

Kate:

But I think the geography community did a massive, a massive piece of work on what inquiry was. We have to kind of keep that beacon alive, if you like, given where we are in education at the moment, and we need to kind of keep keep banging that drama about what it means to be a dog, for Everyone knows and assume the next generation coming through know how important inquiry is in geography. Then we're at risk of looking back in 10 years and going on why in the early 20s, 20s did Inquire in geography becomes so weak if we don't kind of keep banging the drum and keep talking about it? We could find ourselves in that position. We can't take it for granted that all our teachers are going to indefinitely know this really important part of our subject.

Andy:

I think it with this ability to just literacy in particular. It is all about, I think, when I first was trained and introduced to the concept of it, I went straight upstairs and thought, right, this is for English. How can I, like you know, teach 1020 words? That's going to be make me a good discipline to teach him. And I completely missed the point. It and what this really is. It's about the fusion of knowledge with experience, isn't it? It's about the fusion of knowledge with experience that we can provide them in the curriculum, that also, that they are then able to kind of pull on themselves as they get older and that's what you're saying, I suppose, really, isn't it as, as they go through the curriculum, whether it's experiences inside, outside of the classroom, it's, how can you continually fuse that knowledge with the experience that they can then become creative thinkers themselves with creative inquirers themselves. Right, that's the idea, isn't it? The marrying of those two ideas together?

Kate:

Yeah, I'd say so, and obviously a really important part of that is to be able to speak like a joker, because that's how you're going to expose or show whatever word you want to use. That's how you're going to show your geographical knowledge.

Kate:

Because, actually it's that specific nature of the language you're using. Okay, when you're in, perhaps, year seven or year six, you might say money and you might say, oh, you know, this country is wealthier than this country because, or these people have more money as a result of their job. Whatever it may be, you might use.

Kate:

Actually that doesn't enable you to show that much geographical understanding if you're just using the term money for everything, because actually to be a really good juggler for you need to talk about capital where it's appropriate. You need to talk about revenue, profit, income, investment, all of those different terms for forms of money where appropriate, because that shows actually your like geographic understanding of what's going on. So that would be kind of an example of when actually to be a really great juggler is to use the specific language that enables you to fully demonstrate your knowledge.

Andy:

And what's the term? I'm going to show my ignorance here. What's the term for all the goods and services and the value of an economy of a particular country?

Kate:

Yeah, gdp, that sort of thing, this message product.

Andy:

Yeah, but those sorts of things.

Kate:

Because I think you're right. And now the fluffy definition you gave me, that was fluffy.

Andy:

Well, I'm not thinking like a geographer, but I think it's really. But it shows that actually I don't fully understand that concept. I'm not fully able to kind of talk about geography in the way that the geography community are, and that's probably just my general ignorance as a human being rather than a geographer. But I think that's quite interesting.

Kate:

GDP is a really good one, because we'll excuse your fluffy definition but I'll give you a better one. And if we're defining GDP as the total value of goods and services produced in a given country in a given year, we're talking about, obviously, the domestic production within that country. Now, something I see in a fair few schools, when I'm kind of out of an about, is they loosely define GDP in year seven. So in year seven, when they first used the term GDP, they kind of define it in quite a fluffy way, almost like you did, I suppose.

Andy:

Thanks very much. Yeah, yeah, take a bow there.

Kate:

A fluffy way which in year seven. We could argue either way. We could argue it's not appropriate, we could argue actually it's okay. And we could say our GDP is all the stuff produced in a country.

Andy:

That's pretty much what I think it is.

Kate:

The problem is when you get to GCSE and you have to teach them GNI and GDP. If you've gone through the school with a fluffy definition of GDP, you then have to unpack that to clarify the difference between GNI and GDP.

Kate:

Now as I say, there's no kind of one given approach of how you're gonna do it. But when you're thinking about vocabulary you have got to think hang on by doing it this way at this point in time. What is that gonna mean for my journey later? And you need to make that curriculum decision? So actually in year seven, would it be more appropriate to define GDP properly and give them the really long? It is long.

Andy:

Get your hands dirty with it. Make the get your hands dirty with it, yeah absolutely get your hands dirty.

Kate:

Define it properly. So the more time you introduce GNI, you haven't got to unpack anything of GDP. Another example would be sustainability.

Kate:

Are you letting them get away with a really fluffy definition of sustainability lower down the school that then, when you get to GCSE, you have to unpack and say hang on a second, let me give you a more full definition Now.

Kate:

My suggestion would be to look at your curriculum critically and say actually we need to define these words properly from the word go. Now, that might mean that you have to remove some content somewhere, because you might need to spend a whole hour thinking about sustainability in all its different guises and thinking about social sustainability, economic sustainability, environmental sustainability, and that is going to take longer than just giving them one fluffy definition. However, is that going to set you up for more success in the future? I'd argue yes, it is, if you spend that time, and so that's a curriculum choice you've got to make. Now, of course, the problem is you can't do that for every single tier three great geography term, because you'd never cover anything else other than those excellent geography terms. So it all comes down to again those curriculum decisions and those curriculum conversations as a department, what words are we going to get our fingers dirty with and really unpack? Which words are we not going to?

Andy:

It's interesting just fitting this a little bit because when we had our kind of pre-chat about the podcast last week, I demonstrated Mapatu didn't I, bedrock Mapper? The idea that we have this big repository of words where you can effectively take from 37,000 words in the whole curriculum and sequence them in very specific areas for the pupils to kind of experience them as you want. And one thing I've and it's really powerful because it's not just a quiz, it's synonyms, antonyms, images, all that stuff, critical thinking. What's interesting about it and what you've just said there is that it doesn't take anything special to just look at keyword lists in a topic and then have a PDF from some other schools on a knowledge or another school for it in front of the pupils. Off you go.

Andy:

But actually, as you said there, the importance is about the quality of conversation about the curriculum. Right, it's about never mind these 50 words that are linked with this topic that the pupils have to learn and, oh, make flashcards off you go. It's about having the integrity and the credibility to slim those down and unlocking that powerful knowledge for the pupils. Is that what I'm getting picking up from what you're saying there about the quality of curriculum conversations?

Kate:

Yeah, definitely. I think the problem with geography is that you can't slim it down to 10 words in a topic. You can slim it down to the 10 most important but you can't slim it down to 10 essential tier three words. That will unlock this topic, because there is always more than 10. And I'm happy to be corrected on that if anyone wants to give me an example. But I genuinely can't think of an example of a topic where you would only have 10 tier three words.

Andy:

And in English I always give the example of a Christmas Carol because I mean there'll be probably English teachers that will be shouting about this if I say this, but I think that you probably there's a lot of tier two words and trickier words in a Christmas Carol that you probably have to explicitly teach and unpack with the pupils. But actually you probably can get away with slimming some of the tier two vocabulary down when it comes to things like malevolent, misanthropic things like that, because there's loads, but you can probably unlock the key meaning of the text with less. Whereas in geography I gave the example before, but then you're looking at you do need technical terminology to refer to such a complex range of very specific concepts to be an accurate geographer, right yeah?

Kate:

absolutely. I mean, I'm trying to think of the best example. There's so many. We could talk about. The rivers topic we could talk about the need to introduce them to birth rate, death rate, infant mortality, natural increase. How you're going to define your countries, emerging, developing, developed all of that tier three language and someone might say, well, birth rate isn't a tier three language, it's tier two. Well, it's tier two. To come back to what we were saying before, it's tier two if we accept that floppy definition and if you're going to let them get away with a floppy definition of birth rate as the number of babies born.

Kate:

Well, yes, okay, that's perhaps a tier two phrase, but actually you come into real problems with that's how you define birth rate. Birth rate, I would argue, is a tier three word because it's defined as the number of living babies born per a thousand of the population per year. Now a non-geographer goes okay, you're just being pedantic, like why doesn't per a thousand per year bit matter? Well, hang on a second In the next lesson. If we're going to pair development indicators and we're going to look at birth rate, the number has to be per a thousand of the population per year, otherwise you can't compare. You can't compare China with a population of 1.4 billion to the UK with a population of 64 billion, unless the students absolutely know that birth rate is the number of live babies per a thousand. So we come back to that idea of floppy definitions.

Kate:

That then gets in a right pickle, because when you try and unpack it or do anything with that knowledge, it's really problematic and I think that it's the beauty, but it's the difficulty of geography that is actually so much of the language you use in every topic is tier three. If you're going to do it properly and that's the big disclaimer, if you're going to do it properly is tier three language. That a lot of the stuff I see kind of out and about on Twitter and stuff like that works for geography to an extent but doesn't actually deal with that problem, which is how are you going to decide what words to do this for Things like the Freya model? If we did that for every single tier three word in geography, we wouldn't do any teaching. It's why I personally never been a fan of it, because how on earth do you decide which ones are so essential? So it's a really vocabulary in geography is so interesting to think about, but it's also really really difficult. For those reasons that we're kind of exposed to.

Andy:

You're constantly trying to sort of counterbalance breadth and depth, aren't you all the time? And I think in English it's a very similar thing, but possibly even more so for geography, because it's even more critical to get those very precise terms, that critical mass of tier three terms, to properly be able to not just understand it but actually, but then be able to communicate in a very specific way as an expert in that field. Because and I think this is really I'm going to have a, I'm going to be honest here because I initially just everyone who's listening I asked Kate about could you do a, you know a podcast about disciplinary literacy with me? And what was your response? Just so we, just so we can be completely clear with everyone.

Kate:

My response was kind of, I was put back in my box, everyone.

Andy:

I was put right back in my box.

Kate:

My response was yes, we can do the podcast on that course we can, but it's kind of been done. And my response was I'm not sure what I've got to say to add to the conversation about disciplinary literacy, because I feel like personally, I have contributed to but also enjoyed a lot of discussion and a lot of a lot of round tables, a lot of thinking about disciplinary literacy and I think you know we've we've had a lot of these conversations, which is absolutely fine.

Kate:

What we've done, what you and I thus far, andy, have done, is kind of actually really got into like the challenges of it, which is less spoken about, actually okay, but this is really really difficult to do. Well. And so, yeah, my first reaction was, do you really want another podcast discussing disciplinary literacy? But we came up with some, some debates that we could have that were fresh.

Andy:

And I just think it's so interesting because what I'm finding is is and I've always felt a little bit kind of almost embarrassed about the fact that I've I look at some tier two words and think, is that not a tier three word? Am I going to sound silly if I say, is that a tier? Or it might be a tier three word to you if you're, if you're an idiot, but actually it's not. That not the case, is it? It's a case of if you understand the nuance of what that word means. So I think and this is where the difficulty in the debate comes in is it's not just about thinking like a doing, like a geography and all that stuff. It's about actually having being not being scared to have the debate around the complexity of these individual words and these concepts.

Andy:

And I've written recently a blog about. I think we need to almost undergo a shift away from vocabulary list and vocabulary teaching towards conceptually driven you know, understate, kind of under celebrating other than a word isn't just a word, it's a concept. It's a concept that's going to support kind of broader and more meaningful understanding, and I think that's when you can start to have you think about GDP. Actually, I think it's, you've got to come away from a fluffy definition, because I went through my school career with a fluffy definition and it probably didn't do me any good in the end like it hasn't just now, but, but I think it's really important to actually understand the nuance of it.

Andy:

So, if it was up to you, where do you think the debate would most fruitfully shift next? Where do you think the conversation needs to focus next when it comes to this? Because I, like you know, I like the idea that, for example, something like Mapper, because I've looked at the terms on Mapper and said, oh, that's really easy, what's that doing on Mapper? But when you read the specific definition, it's like, oh no, there's more to it than that. So where, where, where do you think things need to shift next If you, if you had your say over it?

Kate:

I think. I think you know it's happening in the community. It does happen. The problem is it takes time. But the most valuable thing for me is to sit down with someone and say Right, let's talk about our curriculum through the lens of vocabulary. So let's talk about tech. Where do you teach tech tonics in key stage three? Okay, whatever your answer to that question is is going to have an impact on the vocabulary, because if you do tech tonics before you do development, then your tech tonics unit maybe, I suspect, much more grounded in the physical geography without the development lens.

Kate:

That's the only company that you use, yeah tonics topic is going to be very different. If you do tech tonics, say, in year nine, after you've done development in year eight, then when you come to compare to earthquakes, which the majority of schools do, let's say Japan and Haiti 2011 and 2010. Other way around, sorry. And when you come to compare those two earthquakes, if you've done development before in your curriculum, then the vocabulary you use in your tech tonic scheme of work is likely to be the physical underpinnings, but then also that development language as well, because you probably will be comparing, yeah, like the development, your ad development lens when looking at the severity of what happens and the severity of the impacts.

Andy:

So that's just what I'm doing.

Kate:

What I enjoy doing and I think we need to move towards more is kind of saying right, let's discuss our curriculum through the vocabulary. So let's look at our curriculum and the sequencing of it right.

Kate:

And then the sequencing and say right, as a result, what vocabulary do you introduce where? So you know that can be as simple as two people sitting down with their curriculum maps and saying where's the first time that your year sevens hear the word infrastructure? Now I would throw it out there that a lot of people don't know the answer to that question and I was certainly in that position as well, that for many years I didn't know the answer. It was basically very ad hoc, like it depended on when the teacher, through the word infrastructure out there, and I think, in terms of really progressing this work forwards, those the sort of conversations we need to have, either as a subject community, across different schools or within the same school, you know, in the departmental meeting, sit down and say OK, year seven, it's Christmas, is Christmas, year seven? What words have our year sevens heard? Have they heard infrastructure? Yet? If the answer is no, it's not a problem, like it doesn't matter. You've made different curriculum choices, but when are they going to hear that first word, infrastructure? Are you all aligned on it? Another example would be something like sustainability. So have you explicitly taught them sustainability yet? No, or is it ad hoc? Are people throwing it out there kind of when they fancy, but actually that could then end up leading to misconceptions later down the line. So I think approaching your curriculum, or thinking about your curriculum, with vocabulary at the core of what you're doing, at the core of those conversations, is so powerful.

Kate:

Now slight disclaimer at the second school I was at, I said we were a very stable team for four years. It was probably only in year three of working together that we were in a position to start thinking about this really deeply. So I don't want people to listen to this and be like how on earth do you, if you're going in and you're overhauling these days to a knowledge or overhauling the resources and you want to throw in vocabulary mapping? That's not what. That's not the reality and it certainly wasn't the reality for me. It was a year three thing. So it was okay.

Kate:

Year one let's overhaul our knowledge, let's think about our sequencing, let's think about our curriculum choices. Year two let's embed, let's refine, let's get there. Year two we had a real focus on core knowledge. So what is the core knowledge in each of those lessons in the scheme of work, and then through that we could kind of unlock this new focus in year three, which was okay. We know what the core knowledge is, so let's focus on the vocabulary and let's focus on the vocabulary that enables them to get that core knowledge. So just a slight disclaimer there that obviously to do some deep thinking about mapping out your vocabulary and thinking about exposure to vocabulary is a big thing and I don't think, I don't think you can do it in your first year of working together or your first year of no we quickly tweaking.

Andy:

We certainly couldn't when I did it and I like to think that we you know, in terms of outcomes and things and what the pupils had us back at my last school, we achieved real success with that. But I would have completely echo what you've just said. You can't do everything at once and you have to be prepared to play the long game with this. But one thing I really like that they chime with what I'm thinking is and something we always said, bedrock, is you have to kind of.

Andy:

You can't take the chance that vocabulary is going to be just caught at chance.

Andy:

It has to be taught, not caught, and I think that's really important at whatever level you do, and you can't do everything all the time but I think it's really important if you're going to have credibility and integrity as a teacher in the room and as a curriculum leader and as a leader in a school, I think you really do need to have Make space for those conversations to happen.

Andy:

And that's what I always say when, for example, with MAPPA, more so than our core programs, when I say with MAPPA, what you've got with MAPPA, for example and, by the way, it doesn't have to be MAPPA, it could be other various of the things that you know, vocab lists that you come up with. What you've got is you've got if, with the internet even, you've got incredible knowledge in the palm of your hands, incredible knowledge. But actually it's more important to make space for the conversation to happen and your intent to happen and the sequencing to happen. That's what's more important, because then, if nothing else, you're singing off the same hymn sheet and you've got a shared, almost meta understanding of how that curriculum is gonna unfold in the classroom for the learners.

Kate:

Yeah, definitely, and I think you know anyone listening to this and thinking, okay, so where do I get started? Get started with those conversations.

Andy:

Yeah.

Kate:

Get started with. Okay, in our next departmental meeting, what's the next topic coming up? What words are we introducing to those students for the first time? Which words are we drawing on from previous topics? Now, of course, words and core knowledge are so intertwined so you're gonna end up, your conversation's gonna end up crossing over If you're sitting down saying like we're gonna start, we're gonna talk about the year eight rivers topic. That's coming up. So what is the vocabulary they're gonna be introduced to in that first lesson? What are they gonna be introduced to? The watershed, the drainage, basin, erosion? Oh, hang on, but they've already heard erosion in like, for example. That would be an example of you know where there's two. The vocabulary and the core knowledge is very, very intertwined. But it's not a false dichotomy, it's just the lens through which you're thinking about it.

Andy:

And I don't think that's sort of understanding like you've just articulated there. I don't think that happens. That kind of understanding that doesn't happen by accident. That happens because you have gone through that process. You've almost been through that process just now yourself again, and I think that those things aren't mutually exclusive and it happens and it's the we've come full circle. Almost. That is disciplinary literacy, isn't it Understanding the intertwinedness, if that's even a word, between those concepts and words and topics?

Kate:

Yeah, yeah, but I think, as we've said, that's your good starting point. So open up the conversation I agree, sit down with the team and say, right, let's have a conversation about vocabulary in this next topic.

Kate:

And you know in my experience you'd be surprised at the richness of the conversation that then comes out the richness of the discussion that you have about the teaching that's coming up, recognising that everyone's going to teach in a slightly different way and everyone's got a diverse teaching style and everyone wants to approach it in a different way. Absolutely, we're not forgetting that at all. But we're aligning on that exposure and that teaching of specific vocabulary to make sure that basically, it's not left up to chance as to who your geography teacher is and when they throw out the words.

Kate:

But it is mapped out more consistently and coherently and you know when you're getting that knowledge through vocabulary.

Andy:

Yeah, and something again that I've heard recently. I love this kind of phrase. It's about the democratisation of knowledge and the democratisation of the expert, almost the idea that everyone, every teacher, gets access to a quality curriculum that they can deliver and have an input in. But also every learner has the right to experience a certain level of knowledge and experience and through the lens that the teacher is presenting. And I think one thing that we've got to get back to in education in general is the mantle of the teacher as the expert, the teaching that you've done a degree. In a lot of the time in this subject, you're the expert in the room. Let's celebrate that and let's be unashamed. The academic, and I think that, yeah, so yeah, I think that's a nice note to leave it on and without anything else, just so. Thank you so much for being my first guest and I hope it wasn't too painful for you, but it's been a real pleasure just listening to someone who's obviously so passionate about what they do. It's been so lovely.

Kate:

Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me. Always wonderful to talk geography and, as you say, kind of a note to leave on is. This is, in my opinion, the best bit of teaching is thinking about those curriculum decisions, those curriculum choices, whatever you want to call it. This is the bit that keeps us learning as adults, as well as the people we're teaching, and so you comment on you sound so passionate, but actually it's the best bit. It is the best bit.

Kate:

It is the best bit, and particularly in a subject like geography, where people are gonna disagree with some things I've said because they wanna do something slightly differently. That's not to say that I'm right and they're wrong. We can just put you in different ways to the same outcome. But as long as you've got that thinking behind it and as long as you've thought about that process and why you're doing what you're doing, we're all wanting to get to the same goal and that's what makes it so great?

Andy:

And I think that's a really lovely place to leave it on, because I think that we are all trying to get to the same place and it's about respecting and celebrating that, which is lovely. So, kate Stockings, thank you very much. It's been a real pleasure.

Kate:

Thank you.

Andy:

And then the recording stops. Perfect. Thank you, you were phenomenal. Thank you so much. That was a Thank you.

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