Victoria county primary school, close to the centre of Burton on Trent, is as old and weather-beaten as its name suggests, but the educational experiences it offers are rich and energetic. Most children are of Asian origin, and many are learning English as a second language. They clearly enjoy their geography lessons, which involve them in explorations of local shops and factories as well as the dense rows of terraced houses which surround their school.

In recent years the school’s teachers have divided up and grouped appropriate topics from the subject ring-binders. They have consequently managed to cover the existing Orders fully, while ensuring that children are challenged by increasing demand as they work their way through the programmes. The problem has, of course, been one of overload.

The revised geography Order offers the opportunity to cover less but in more depth. Teachers at the school want to maintain curricular balance and continue with a topic-based approach. They are managing to reduce the content in many topics, and to delete some topics entirely, a strategy which allows for more rewarding and differentiated experiences.

More time will be available to reinforce language development through geography and the other subjects. A geography-led topic on local industry has been retained (even though the economic activity theme is no longer in the geography key stage 2 programme) because it is felt that pupils have enjoyed and benefited from the contact with people at work.

The school’s approach seems entirely sensible. Having established what has changed and what remains the same in geography, the staff have set out to identify what, if anything, needs to be altered. Since there is no new content in the revised Order, they are necessarily meeting the new requirements. Here is a lesson for us all. There is no need to change anything that you and your school are happy with. The revised Order represents the minimum content that every pupil is entitled to, but teachers are free to build on this by extending existing topics or introducing new ones, and making savings elsewhere. Certainly there is no need to discount successful past work simply because it does not feature overtly in the new Order.

Generally teachers have welcomed the changes in geography. There is a broad acceptance that we now have a programme which is clearer in presentation, simpler in structure, far less prescriptive, and much more manageable than its predecessor.

But the exercise has not been without risk. Revisions have been made to a document that was seriously flawed. This was scarcely the best starting point for a review. The reduction in prescribed content has left programmes looking quite bare. It will be a challenge to build from them courses which retain a balance between places, skills and themes. Pupils will need support in relating their geography work and making connections between local and more distant studies, if they are to move towards a coherent map of the world. Primary teachers might find it useful to check any revisions against the seven points listed in the table below.

At key stage 3, the programme has been reduced substantially. The number of place-studies is cut from seven to two and the number of themes from 11 to nine. Teachers will need to review their existing work at this level and make decisions about where the emphasis should be placed. For example, will they focus predominantly on place studies, or thematic work, on issues or on a mixture of these? Within a much thinner brief, how will progression be realised from key stage 2 work, through key stage 3 and into post-14 courses?

At all three key stages, the adjustments to the teaching programme do not seem to be the major challenge, even though they need to be handled carefully. Far more significant will be the degree to which we can shake off our dependence on others telling us what to do, rediscover ownership of the curriculum and start creating again. We must use the opportunity that space has provided to do less but to do it better. Raising standards in teaching and learning is the real challenge.

* Roger Carter is chairman of the Geographical Association Education Standing Committee and county inspector for geographyin Staffordshire.

SEVEN POINTS TO REMEMBER

1 Be sure that all pupils have a recurring experience of geography throughout the primary years.They should have some contact with the subject every term.

2 In all years provide a mix of local and distant material. For younger pupils local means within their known world, and global means any new experience which extends it.

3 Increase the proportion of distant place work as children progress through the years.

4 Help pupils to connect their work on familiar and unfamiliar places, and to bring together work on places,themes and skills.

5 Think about the order in which pupils study topics. Allow for pupils to return to key ideas and aspects several times through their primary years.

6 Build progression into your planning by increasing the sophistication of skills, and widening the range, complexity and methods of study.

7 Adopt an enquiry approach by structuring your teaching units around a series of key questions.