The class topics involved were chiefly locally focused. What the teach-ers found was that children’s enthusiasm and local knowledge and under-standing could be harnessed in curriculum making. Children could make rational and reasonable choices about lines of investigation, about sequences and organisation of studies, themes and tasks. They could take responsibility to shape directions within the topic. For many teachers this was an understanding of pupils’ roles which they developed through the topic. It was not that they had not elicited children’s awareness and knowledge in the past but that they had not brought the children into the development of previous topics as partners. By beingmore open to pupils’ involvement from the start, teachers realised that what the children could offer was able to be brought more into the mainstream as the topic evolved. Children’s agency emerged and increased alongside teachers’ developing confidence in them and themselves. Subject dynamics Subject dynamics describe those characteristics which relate to the three core components in curriculum making described by the GA: the subject, the children’s experience and understandings, and the teachers’ subject teaching repertoire (Lambert & Morgan, 2010; GA, 2012; Biddulph, 2013). Four subject dynamics were identified. The first is teachers’ per-sonal appreciation of their subject knowledge. Second was their recogni-tion of the children’s geographical awareness and knowledge, particularly locally. The third concerned children’s developing realisation of their geo-graphical understanding and of the subject. Fourth was teachers’ rein-forcement and development of their teaching repertoire. The participants in this study largely felt confident in their subject knowledge and understanding, the first subject dynamic, though it enabled them to extend their appreciation and use of that knowledge:

DOI link for The class topics involved were chiefly locally focused. What the teach-ers found was that children’s enthusiasm and local knowledge and under-standing could be harnessed in curriculum making. Children could make rational and reasonable choices about lines of investigation, about sequences and organisation of studies, themes and tasks. They could take responsibility to shape directions within the topic. For many teachers this was an understanding of pupils’ roles which they developed through the topic. It was not that they had not elicited children’s awareness and knowledge in the past but that they had not brought the children into the development of previous topics as partners. By beingmore open to pupils’ involvement from the start, teachers realised that what the children could offer was able to be brought more into the mainstream as the topic evolved. Children’s agency emerged and increased alongside teachers’ developing confidence in them and themselves. Subject dynamics Subject dynamics describe those characteristics which relate to the three core components in curriculum making described by the GA: the subject, the children’s experience and understandings, and the teachers’ subject teaching repertoire (Lambert & Morgan, 2010; GA, 2012; Biddulph, 2013). Four subject dynamics were identified. The first is teachers’ per-sonal appreciation of their subject knowledge. Second was their recogni-tion of the children’s geographical awareness and knowledge, particularly locally. The third concerned children’s developing realisation of their geo-graphical understanding and of the subject. Fourth was teachers’ rein-forcement and development of their teaching repertoire. The participants in this study largely felt confident in their subject knowledge and understanding, the first subject dynamic, though it enabled them to extend their appreciation and use of that knowledge:

The class topics involved were chiefly locally focused. What the teach-ers found was that children’s enthusiasm and local knowledge and under-standing could be harnessed in curriculum making. Children could make rational and reasonable choices about lines of investigation, about sequences and organisation of studies, themes and tasks. They could take responsibility to shape directions within the topic. For many teachers this was an understanding of pupils’ roles which they developed through the topic. It was not that they had not elicited children’s awareness and knowledge in the past but that they had not brought the children into the development of previous topics as partners. By beingmore open to pupils’ involvement from the start, teachers realised that what the children could offer was able to be brought more into the mainstream as the topic evolved. Children’s agency emerged and increased alongside teachers’ developing confidence in them and themselves. Subject dynamics Subject dynamics describe those characteristics which relate to the three core components in curriculum making described by the GA: the subject, the children’s experience and understandings, and the teachers’ subject teaching repertoire (Lambert & Morgan, 2010; GA, 2012; Biddulph, 2013). Four subject dynamics were identified. The first is teachers’ per-sonal appreciation of their subject knowledge. Second was their recogni-tion of the children’s geographical awareness and knowledge, particularly locally. The third concerned children’s developing realisation of their geo-graphical understanding and of the subject. Fourth was teachers’ rein-forcement and development of their teaching repertoire. The participants in this study largely felt confident in their subject knowledge and understanding, the first subject dynamic, though it enabled them to extend their appreciation and use of that knowledge: