Making Geography Challenging: Pupils’ Perspectives

There is widespread concern about the educational provision for most able pupils within non-selective secondary schools in England. Teaching appears to be insufficiently challenging. This results in too many of the most able students failing to reach their potential as their needs are not being prioritised. Teachers today contend with how to reach out effectively to students that span the spectrum of learning. Specific factors leading to insufficient KS3 provision for most able geographers tend to include pitching work at the middle ability range, ability groupings, excessive repetition of learning students have already mastered, non-specialist teaching, and leaders focusing the skills disproportionately of their best teachers on upper key stages. This study investigates pupils’ perceptions on the current level of challenge they encounter in geography lessons in an 11-16 non-selective secondary school in Derbyshire. The research examines which geographical content and pedagogical approaches lead to challenging geography. The students referred to the complex relationship between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of teaching geography and revealed how imperative it is, that teachers dedicate more time for, and place greater emphasis on the provision of challenge for most able geographers, in order for them to make better progress