At the time of writing, there is still so much we don’t know about how school will look after lockdown. I’d wager this hasn’t changed much by the time you read it.

The speculation is that Year 10s will return first to secondary schools, in England at least, and the assumption seems to be that this will be the case so we can continue teaching them for their exams next year. 

How many will turn up? We don’t know. 

Will we get them back before summer? We don’t know. 

Will there have to be any changes to the exams next year, too? We don’t know.

Basically, there is a lot we don’t know. 

Teaching Year 10

As a teacher, I can drive myself mad about the things I don’t know and the things I can’t control. Instead, I am trying to focus on what I do know and those things that I can do something about. 

This is what I know:

• At some point, my Year 10 students will return to school, part way through their GCSE course. 
• They will have completed work at home (and I know which students have completed and submitted work and which ones haven’t)... 
• …but they won’t have made as much progress through the course as they would have done in schools and they will have gaps in their understanding of what they have covered. 
• I also know they will come back worried and anxious. 

And this is what I can do with those “knowns”. 

1. Examine the specification 

Firstly, I can remind them, and perhaps more importantly myself, that completing a GCSE course is only one reason for coming to their geography lessons. 

Our main goal is to learn geography, and that is important regardless of what happens with the exam arrangements. 

As long as my classes have an excellent knowledge of the subject, they will be able to cope with whatever is thrown at them at the end of the course. They will be adaptable. 

This is not the time for lots of exam-specific skills and preparation, but the time to look back on how much they have already learned. 

I will, however, have to think carefully about what to change in terms of our curriculum moving forward. The best remote learning in the world doesn’t come close to replicating the magic of the classroom and the progress that students can make there. 

We will be behind on where I had planned to be. One solution may be to look at where two topics can be overlayed. 

For example, in geography, I may be able to teach aspects of water management alongside the desertification topic. Ideally, I would take advantage of this to revisit a previously taught topic, but I may need to accept that these are not ideal times. 

2. Review the work

Secondly, I can spend some time before they return reviewing the work that was set and comparing it to what was in the scheme of work. 

What was I able to set via remote learning and what have I had to leave until their return? 

Just as importantly, I need to think about the things that have been set that they have struggled with. I can then begin to work out what may need to be retaught completely and which things might just need to be revisited in revision or through retrieval practice interspersed through the course. 

I will also need to review where the topics that were set during lockdown reoccur in the curriculum. Most of our subjects are synoptic to some extent, and my own to a greater extent than others, and I could find in the future that students struggle with a topic because it is based on poor foundations that are being established at the moment. Being aware of when this is likely to happen means I can plan for it. 

3. Review the learning

It won’t be enough to just review the work that was set; I will need to review what has actually been learned. 

I can start doing this before they return with some quick self-marked quizzes set using platforms such as Google Forms. This will hopefully identify gaps in their learning, not just for me but also for them. I can easily create some homework tasks based on these questions so that they know what they need to do if they couldn’t answer a particular question.

What I don’t want to do, but have heard suggested, is have students return to some kind of summative mock exam to try to diagnose whether they are working at a different grade now than they were before the lockdown. This kind of practice will tell me very little about the support they need or the reasons why they need it. I’ll keep it low stakes and diagnostic.

I hope that following these steps will help both me and my students be less worried and anxious about what is to come. We will concentrate on getting back on with the important, and enjoyable, business of learning geography and exploring the world together. As things change, we will adapt and adjust; working together as a profession to ensure the best possible outcomes for our students - however those are measured. 

Mark Enser is head of geography and research lead at Heathfield Community College in East Sussex. His latest book, Teach Like Nobody’s Watching, is out now. He tweets @EnserMark