Supporting our students at home

"What can I do at home to help?"

The above statement can be heard up and down the country during pretty much every parent - teacher meeting.  So here we set about at setting up a distinct step by step guide for people at home in how they can support the learning of Geography within their students.

Step One - Look for the Geography where ever you go. 

By encouraging students to learn about the life around them they can learn about related topics and geographical issues. Get out a road map or atlas before heading off on holiday or a day trip and talk through what students may see along the way.

For A level students it is expected that students should be doing a considerable amount of reading and other research around the subject. Please help by encouraging this if you find any appropriate newspaper articles.

Step Two - Watch TV.

There are some fantastic television programmes that show key geographical concepts and process. Or watching the news can lead to gaining a broader and wider knowledge which could lead on to higher attainment. This is true from Year 7 through to Year 13.

Step Three - Keep an eye on Homework

Ensuring that homework is completed is very important. Homework is set to extend learning and therefore an appropriate amount of time (this does change per year group) is expected on particular topics and not rushed.

When work has been completed on computers or the internet, you can ensure that students don't hand in work that has been simply copied and pasted from the internet.

Step Four - Encourage Revision Time

Student revision is one of the most difficult tasks for many students. Sometimes it can be the fear of the workload that they have to face, for others it may be ability to revise. Revision is not just reading through exercise and text books. Encourage students to process information in a range of ways. Summary notes, mind maps are a great place to start. A revision timetable may help some students.

If you are feeling relatively technological, why not send them a text with a question a day on?

Most importantly please make sure that students put plenty of time and effort into revision. Revision booklets and past exam questions and mark schemes are often sent home for students to do. It may be useful at times to have a look through and pinpoint any specific worries they may have and approach us to get any clarification if needs be. If we don't know, then we can't help!

Step Five - Keep an eye on their exercise books

From time to time, keep an eye on their exercise books and discuss how their work, the marks and the overall presentation appears.