Geography lessons offer great scope for developing students’ literacy and numeracy and provide plentiful opportunities for students to develop effective reading, writing and numeracy skills and communicate orally. Promoting literacy and numeracy is seen as a responsibility for all teachers in the National Curriculum.

The DfE Frameworks for ITT and ECTs emphasise that every teacher can improve students’ literacy by explicitly teaching reading, writing and oral language skills. Good literacy and numeracy skills are necessary for geographical study to help students understand geographical concepts, develop their geographical thinking and communicate ideas.

Start by looking at these aspects of literacy and numeracy.