PGCE Secondary: Geography

This course will prepare you to teach all aspects of Geography in secondary school. The course will be taught by a tutor who has considerable experience in the secondary school sector as well as in mentoring PGCE trainees. Valuable input into the course is made by teachers from schools where trainees are placed for classroom experience. By the end of the course, you will have learnt how to develop and extend your pupils' geographical understanding, skills, and knowledge in all its forms, how to organise, structure and assess work for a range of abilities and ages, how to meet the needs of individual learners and how to implement strategies promoting equal opportunities. You will learn about current developments in the teaching of Geography and its place in the National Curriculum at GCSE.

You will learn how Geography enables young people to make sense of a complex and dynamically changing world. It explains where places are, how places and landscapes are formed, how people and their environment interact, and how a diverse range of economies, societies and environments are interconnected. You will also draw on your own studies and work experience to encourage questioning, investigation and critical thinking about issues affecting the world and people's lives, now and in the future.

Many of our subject rooms are set up to resemble classrooms, ensuring that from your first day at university you will be in a school environment. This is important for your full immersion into the school environment and familiarity with the way classrooms are structured, and the type of resources teachers need daily.

All our academic staff have extensive teaching experience in schools, and many have served in local authorities or subject associations as advisory teachers, as Ofsted inspectors or as consultants. This means that our programmes are based on the reality of the classroom and the education system. Many works at the cutting edge of research in teacher education, which has a positive impact on the quality of provision for all our students.

Applicants should have a single subject degree in Geography or a joint degree in which Geography forms the major part. Interviews will include a discussion of the value of fieldwork in Geography at secondary school.