The Third Degree

Thanks to Frances Soar for sending me details of a radio quiz which features Barnaby Bear. Start from around 13 minutes in.

The link to listen is here.

The specialist subjects this week are Marine and Freshwater Biology, Education and Forestry Management and Conservation, and the questions range from brothels and bats to Barnaby Bear. There's also a chance to brush up on your fronted adverbials. 

Tocuaro Revisited

Thanks to Angus Willson for sending me some copies of Tocuaro in a parcel of things from the 80s and 90s and his time as a consultant on a range of projects and working with Worldaware from 2000-2005.

Tocuaro is a Mexican village and a KS2 Case Study of a distant place which sold well.

Its authors included former GA President Wendy Morgan, along with Vincent Bunce, Fiona Gibbs and David Wakefield. The Book was accompanied by a Teacher Guide, and is in full colour and illustrated with lots of photos, maps and diagrams. A large accompanying map is also available.

Barnaby Bear has visited the area too.

The book was published in 1998 and can still be purchased from the GA Store.

This full colour book for key stage 2 children explores the geography, history and environment of the village through the lives of three generations of the Horta family. It also covers the eruption of the nearby Paricutin volcano in 1943, and the pollution of Lake Patzcuaro, an important local issue.

There are 3 clips from CBeebies here.

It has previously been picked up and used by QCA as an exemplar: 

http://www.schoolslinks.co.uk/geo22.pdf

A search reveals that a lot of Primary schools have been inspired by the book to complete a range of creative tasks. The Horta family and their masks have inspired some art work as well.

Additional resources already exist on Twinkl.

It occurred to me that it might be time to update the book and see what changes had taken place in Tocuaro in the last 25 years, perhaps with a new edition for 2023. I had a quick look at Tocuaro using some web maps and will see what I can uncover and compare with the way the village was represented in the book.

Barnaby Bear

Image: Bryan Ledgard

Barnaby Bear® is an excellent ambassador for understanding the world for young people and is now well over twenty years old.

Thanks to Paula Richardson, a trustee of the GA, and someone who has been involved with GA Publishing for many years, for sending through some information on the origins of Barnaby, who was licensed to the BBC for a number of animated series and books, and is still around, having adventures.

She told me

I devised BB as a scheme of work back in 1995 when we had to rush out schemes of work for all the nC subjects. This was the most frequently downloaded SOW for quite a long period. I then had the copyright given to me from DfE and the BBC which I passed onto the GA.

Some further background on the origins of Barnaby Bear.

The Barnaby Bear project arising from the QCA Scheme of Work (‘Where in the World is Barnaby Bear’?) has done much to promote new ways of bringing geography alive for younger children. It is a useful tool in involving children in working with geographical concepts which otherwise might be too difficult for them. Using an animal is a way into arousing interest and curiosity in young children and provides a bridge from their own small world to a larger world outside. 

From 1998 – 2002 the BBC filmed 12 programmes for the ‘Watch’ series – 8 were geographically based and 4 were more generally based for showing on ‘Cbeebies’. All these programmes have enjoyed a run /re-run on television which has far out stripped the normal ‘five year ’limit for programmes of this type. 

The geography programmes were then sold to CBeebies and ran for several years on this channel. 

I have a 'hand puppet style' bear. BB also appeared at Michael Bradford's Conference after dinner speech.

Barnaby Bear is due to get a relaunch, so keep an eye out for the cuddly globetrotter...

Several GA Presidents and other staff have also been seen wearing the costume at the GA Conference over the years. Can you guess who this is inside the costume?

Clue - he's the next GA President up on the blog.