At 10:30am on January 20, 2009, Michelle Peck said…: Hi Malcolm!
Where have all those years gone?! Yep did a few years in Guernsey and then moved back to Kendal to work at QES in Kirkby Lonsdale! Live in Lancaster now- all going well. Which school are you at?

At 5:11pm on November 30, 2008, Kevin Cooper said…: Hey Malcolm, welcome to the ning.

Been mad busy, no time to send stuff to you guys yet - but in any case, Dave Pryor is setting up Sefton ning, so might just post all the stuff onto there.

Glad you've asked about the Coniston stats - I've done a reply, hopefully others will too - do upload anything from your fieldwork in Lakes.

Standard welcome letter below, if you happen to have time to trawl through...!

Dear New Member,

I have created this NING as part of my role as RSA (Regional Subject Advisor) for the GA.

The aim is to facilitate increased communication between geography teachers (and field studies tutors, PGCE tutors and students, etc.) either working in Cumbria or with a particular interest in Cumbria (e.g. regular field trips).

I’d love for you to post resources, ideas, photos, links to useful websites, local geographical news items, etc. – and find good things you can use that others have posted – but even if you don’t find the time for any of that, being a member of this NING will ‘keep you in the loop’ wrt curriculum changes, INSETs, etc.

I also envisage teachers using the forum to ask things like ‘does anyone do a fieldtrip to Barrow?’ or ‘does anyone have a good KS3 scheme of work on The Lake District’ or ‘does anyone know of a video clip that shows longshore drift in action?’ or ‘does anyone have any resources on urban models based on Carlisle?’ – rather like the SLN forum, but with the focus on Cumbria.

Why not add the NING to your homepage tabs and check in daily to see what people are saying / uploading?

One advantage of posting here is that it will help you in accumulating evidence of ‘sharing of good practice’ which is a requirement of e.g. threshold, AST, etc. (also good to talk about at interview). If you download a resource, please do just post a ‘thanks’, so that the creator of the resource can use that as evidence. Even better would be providing feedback if you have used the resource / idea in a lesson. I would love for this forum to also be a place where people can give feedback on resources, suggesting possible developments or improvements.

In an ideal world the NING will also help in arranging face-to-face meetings between geography teachers, but the beauty of the NING is that it doesn’t involve travelling long distances like most face-to-face meetings in our vast county do!

My hope is that at least one teacher from each secondary school in Cumbria will join up – ideally every geography teacher in Cumbria, so please do invite any others you know of.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please do let me know.

All the best,

Kevin (Cooper)

John Ruskin School, Coniston

kevincooper777@btinternet.com
07752 412254
01229 718847