Part 4: Shared Resources – Structures That Strengthen Community and Collaboration

This follows on from Part 3: Shared Purpose – Why It Matters | LinkedIn

One of the most powerful ways to build and sustain a subject community is by creating shared systems that make collaboration not just possible—but natural, expected, and supported.

Over the past few years, we’ve worked hard to put in place the structures that allow our Geography Subject Community to connect, align, and grow together. These systems aren't just about distributing materials; they are about centralising access, reducing duplication, and reinforcing the sense of a shared professional endeavour.

Tools like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint have supported this work seamlessly providing the digital infrastructure to organise resources, streamline communication, and ensure that collaboration is embedded into our day-to-day ways of working.

They reflect the principle that in a strong subject community, resources aren’t just created—they’re shared, shaped, and refined.

The Geography KS3 Common Core Curriculum Hub

We are now well underway with the development of our new common core curriculum, with the role out of Year 8 starting in September 2025. Using Sharepoint, the Common Core Curriculum Hub is our central platform for all our curriculum products. It provides a single, accessible space for teachers across the trust to find things such as:

• Printable and editable student booklets

• Detailed teacher guides

• Fluency and retrieval questions

• Curriculum Maps and Documentation

By bringing all core materials together in one place, we remove barriers to access and support consistency—while still allowing space for local adaptation and professional autonomy. It’s a model that ensures every teacher can engage with the curriculum confidently, no matter their school context or level of experience. The Hub also includes a feedback function, built using Microsoft Forms, which provides a simple but effective channel for ongoing input. This ensures that every member of the Geography Subject Community has a voice—not just at meetings, but at any time—contributing to building a culture of continuous reflection and feedback.

The Digital Geography Subject Community ‘Team’ Space

Hosted on Microsoft Teams, this space acts as a digital subject hub—a place where members of the Geography Subject Community can:

• Ask questions and share updates

• Upload, share and access resources

• Access Trust wide central Geography Resources created by the Geography National Lead

• Connect with colleagues across academies in real time

This space isn’t an afterthought—it’s part of the day-to-day of our subject community. It enables ideas and support to flow freely, whether that’s highlighting new guidance, inviting feedback or for sharing trust wide resources during revision periods.

Through the use of private channels, the platform also facilitates more targeted collaboration—supporting individual departments and enabling direct work with Heads of Department as part of ongoing curriculum development. Alongside the wider collaborative spaces, this layered structure helps us meet both trust-wide and school-specific needs.

To make navigation easy and intuitive, a dedicated SharePoint homepage sits in front of the Teams space—signposting staff directly to key curriculum documents, planning resources, and support materials. It’s a small design detail, but one that ensures access is consistent and inclusive for all members of the subject community.

 The Astrea Geography Scholar Hub

The Scholar Hub is a trust-wide platform built using SharePoint and Microsoft 365—leveraging the systems we already have in place to create something greater: a central, coordinated space where every student across the trust can access academic support beyond the classroom.

Led and built centrally as part of my role as National Geography Lead, the Scholar Hub provides consistent access to high-quality materials that are aligned with our shared curriculum. Ultimately, the Scholar Hub embodies the idea that equity starts with access. By removing logistical and geographical barriers, we ensure that every student—regardless of school or circumstance—can benefit from a coherent, expert-informed resource base as a universal offer. This was launched for this years’ Year 11 cohort and is very much an ongoing project (the aim is to also widen this to KS3 and KS5 and the structure is in place to do this).

It can be used flexibly by departments and teachers to:

• Share revision materials and support independent study

• Provide access for students who may be absent from school

• Signpost resources following mock exams or gap analysis

• Narrow knowledge gaps by directing students to targeted content

In addition to this where requested I have supported each department in developing their own revision hub which they can update easily themselves tailored directly to their students, specific case studies, messaging, and context.

While these platforms provide the internal infrastructure for collaboration and consistency, we also recognise the importance of staying connected to the wider subject landscape. That’s why national subject association membership plays a vital role in extending our professional community beyond the trust.

Subject Association Membership – The Geographical Association

As a trust, we hold a Geographical Association membership for all our primary and secondary academies. This means every geography department—regardless of phase—benefits from full access to our subject’s professional body.

Through this membership, every geography teacher across the trust can access:

• The Teaching Geography and GA Magazine journal archives

• Subject-specific research, guidance, and classroom materials

• National curriculum updates and professional discourse

• Geographical Association Resources

This ensures our subject community remains not only professionally grounded, but actively connected at all three levels of subject community development outlined in an earlier post – in this upstream to the national subject community (through GA membership and national discourse)

It strengthens our professional identity and keeps our work aligned with national conversations about what excellent geography education looks like  ensuring our subject community remains both connected and current.

Final Reflection

Shared resources don’t make a subject community on their own — but the systems we put in place to share, develop, and learn from each other are what help turn shared resources into shared practice — and that help builds a subject community. Whether it’s through Teams, SharePoint, or professional networks like the GA, these structures help keep us connected, keep things manageable, and keep our curriculum work moving forward—together.

Next Post: Part 5 - Collective Power – The Unity in Community | LinkedIn

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