Hi all
One thing that did occur to me is the the RCUK Academic Fellows scheme
expressly requires that the appointed fellow conducts 'outreach' in
schools. This does not have to mean that have to just persuade pupils to
consider higher education but could also be interpreted as a way to
build a two-way engagement with school geography within the universities
local area...
Steve
Helen Griffiths wrote:
> for what it's worth...
>
> There are ways and means that academic geographers can find small spaces
> to infiltrate into schools, and it doesn't have to be seen as something
> extra to fit into their alreasy packed lives. How about Univeristies'
> Widening Participation Units? Academics (particularly if they are their
> department's school liason officer) can usefully tick off their Widening
> Participation strand by enagaging with local schools in a collaborative
> way.
>
> Here at Birmingam Univeristy our unit was only to pleased to hear from us
> and actively encouraged us to engage with local schools. A couple of hours
> writing a funding proposal and we were given £5000 (not much in the wider
> scheme of academic funding I know, but plenty to cover travel, equipment
> etc.). Staff, postgrads and undergrads were engaged in a 5 week
> collaborative project with staff and pupils from an under-achieving school
> which was only a 15 minute train ride from our uni. It was bloody
> fantatsic. And it was two-way. We learnt as much from the kids as they did
> from us! So was this project teaching, admin or research? Well, if
> acadmics are cleaver enough they can kill three birds with one stone. And
> it's getting over what geography is to one of our most important publics-
> school kids. Here's what's just two of the kids told us (I could go on):
>
> "Geography’s a lot better now, yeah. I chose it because I didn’t like
> history, but now I know a lot more to do with geography and I feel more
> confident with it… I didn’t realise that geography was such a variety of
> stuff."
>
> "Before this project we would have definitely discarded Geography for our
> A-Level subjects. But since doing the more practical project we will
> definitely consider doing A-Level Geography."
>
> Check out the pilot GCSE
> (http://www.geography.org.uk/projects/pilotgcse/) - if there's a school
> near you doing it, chances are that teachers will have the flexibility to
> adapt the curriculum (modules on People as Consumers, Cultural Geography
> etc. etc.) ... I think it is often these small spaces of opportunity
> that can really change things... Just getting kids onto campus and seeing
> what a univeristy actually looks like an achieve a lot.
>
> Or, how about getting involved with your local branch of the GA
> (http://www.geography.org.uk/aboutus/branches/)?
>
> Helen
>
> Helen Griffiths
> Doctoral Researcher
> School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
> University of Birmingham
> Tel: 0121 4143282
> Email: [log in to unmask]
> Website: http://www.gees.bham.ac.uk/people/phd.asp?offset=20&ID=479
--
Steven Cummins MSc PhD
MRC Fellow
Department of Geography
Queen Mary, University of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS
T: 44 020 7882 7653
F: 44 020 8981 6276
E: [log in to unmask]
W: http://www.geog.qmul.ac.uk/staff/cummins.html
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