Secondary Co-ordinator's Report
ESTA Secondary Co-ordinator's Report for the year 25-26
As usual a busy September kicked off with the UCL conference organised by Paul Davies by highlights including a wonderful trip to the natural history museum exploring many publicly unseen areas in the basement with meteorites and early expedition samples from Scott's Antarctica route a personal highlight for myself.
Here is a brief running order from the Bring and share session which I organised and hosted thanks to all contributors it was great:
Introduction - Ryan Lawson
Exam Update - Pete Loader
Earth learning Ideas Update - Pete Loader
AI and Geology - Sara Metcalf
Mineral Mission - Ben Lepley
Nuclear/Radiation - Jim Entwistle
A coffee break in time - Unconformities - Ryan Lawson
Virtual Microscope - Tom Argyles
Modelling Metallic ground survey - Rachel H
Visible Geology - on behalf of Andrew Quixley
UCL CPD sessions
It is also worth noting that the sessions put on by UCL were supported by ESTA:
Having liaised with UCL (John Brodholt) who has been instrumental in helping to set up the conference and trying to facilitate the needs of our members, it was decided that a wish list of content for two sessions was needed, one on Mapwork and another on microscopes for the UCL conference 2025.
Jennie Russel the assistant coordinator – put together a range of examples from past papers for the microscope/photomicrographs similar to component 1 Eduqas style papers.
Whilst I compiled similar examples to demonstrate examples for Mapwork from assessment material in order to guide UCL staff. They can then have a clearer idea on what we deliver at A-level and this has provided ideas for possible session outcomes and materials during the conference.
Exam Techniques session.
There was also a session on exam skills and techniques with contributions from Jennie Russel on Component 1, Angela Bentley on Component 2 and Ryan Lawson(me) on Component 3.
This consisted of model exam answers which all examiners had annotated and allowed some insightful discussions on application as well as the number of marks awarded for 6m QER questions.
The overarching theme from examiners was that students need to apply some technique to the questions, be it point-evidence-explanation-link or Topic-focus-command helpsheets were circulated and shared which have been designed by myself. There were also opportunities to take away an updated ‘mapwork rules helpsheet’ with visual clues (this has been updated from an original Chris King document).
Local Support
Locally to my College in Havant I have continued to support one of my ex-students Josh Macefield to set up GCSE geology at Park Community School.
I have facilitated and delivered a masterclass on microscopes using a range of specimens and petrographic slides at my college. I have also visited his school and delivered more specimen boxes so they have a full set of Minerals, fossils and rock samples to facilitate the teaching of A-level geology. I was also able to deliver a Weathering session using earth learning ideas to show Josh how these topics could be taught.
He has 8 students and has just completed their first set of GCSE results.
His results were exceptional considering the school is from an extremely deprived area with many challenging students he has consented for me to share the results, with the hope these will encourage other centres to start GCSE geology:
50% Pass rate with a grade 7, 5 and two grade 4’s.
The school normally achieves around 30% pass rate for geography so definitely a stand out subject, well done Josh.
National History GCSE consultation.
The Critical Minerals association with the support of Kevin Stephen have put together a working group to address the lack of geology in the new national history consultation which closes on September the 4th. I was invited to attend meetings and discussions with stakeholders. Kevin Stephen meticulously analysed the consultation document and fed back to the CMA highlighting the following:
The natural shaping of the world, which included topics like plate tectonics and Pangea, as well as life in the early world, which included topics such as the fossil record and evolution. This essentially means that the geological (and palaeontological) aspects of natural history have been removed and the new natural history GCSE proposal has been stripped bare of geological content. This skew towards the biological branches of natural history can be subjectively measured by undertaking a word count of “bio” topics versus “geo” topics in the DfE natural history GCSE proposed subject content document where “bio” wins nine to one!
This has prompted a response from the CMA who are in the process of reworking a document following feedback from myself and especially Kevin Stephen. Dave Turner(ESTA chair) has also responed to the consultation online emphasizing many of these point in the online consultation form. Members were also emailed this and encouraged to fill out the form which i also did as an A-level geology teacher.
Science and Geography National curriculum consultation Iminent.
On the horizon is a much bigger consultation which will affect all students studying in secondary schools which opens in September. The CMA have already discussed this with myself and Kevin Stephen as part of the natural history work that has already been mentioned.
We have therefore been pre-empting the consultation and Kevin Stephen has put together a document which highlights and signposts where Geology should be included in the Science national curriculum, I am currently adding in the areas in the Geography NC that should include reference to geology.
The main areas of concern are:
Lack of Geology mentioned by name and emphasising its inclusion explicitly.
Subject content which is vital in understanding the earth.
Skill considerations such as observation, recording, analysis as well as fieldwork in STEM.
Industry Implication - shortage in many sectors directly linked to government job shortages and will be a focus of the CMA in the document when it is finalised.
Leeds
I am looking forward to hosting the Bring and Share session so get involved, if you have any other news or updates locally or nationally please share with me on: r.lawson@esta.ac.uk
I will also be hosting the spotlight session new spec no stress.The Leeds conference this year will have a session dedicated to the transition to Eduqas from OCR following on from the announcement that they will no longer be offering an exam in geology.
