"Look at it this way"

As this piece in the TES reports, OFQUAL are proposing to remove the mandatory requirement for fieldwork for geography and related subjects. We have just started doing fieldwork again at my school, with trips to Cambridge and the Norfolk Coast carried out, or taking place last week and this week. If you have an opinion on this, OFQUAL are running a consultation on the issue, which started yesterday and runs through to the 28th of May. As the consultation page says: This consultation focuses on the subjects for which preparation and work for non-exam assessment and fieldwork activities will be taking place this term for students who will be taking their exams in 2022. It covers non-exam assessments in dance, design and technology, drama (and theatre), film studies, food preparation and nutrition, media studies, music, music technology, and physical education fieldwork activities in geography, geology and environmental science assessment of speaking skills in GCSE modern foreign language...

“Fieldwork is the best and most immediate means of bringing the two aspects of the subject (i.e. a body of knowledge and a distinctive method of study) together in the experience of the pupil. Therefore, fieldwork is a necessary part of geographical education; it is not an optional extra”   (Bailey, 1974) Over the years I've been part of many consultations and responses to consultations from the GA and also in a personal capacity.  Over the years the GA and other bodies have had to fight to keep aspects of the subject, indeed the whole subject itself, on the curriculum. Many consultations receive a low number of responses. This often plays to those who want to skew the result in a particular way by saying "look, there's no real opposition to this in the responses to the consultation". OFQUAL has a consultation running until the 16th of July.  TAKE PART! This consultation is on the content and running of the 2021 Exams for GCSE, AS (which nobody really...