1986-7: Kenneth Baker

An interesting debate carried on from 1985 and Keith Joseph's speech at a special one-day conference in King's College, London in June 1985.

The GA had responded to 7 questions posed by Keith Joseph, but he was then replaced by Kenneth Baker. The letter defined elements of the GA's emerging policy towards a National Curriculum.

This had 4 key bullet points:

1. Understanding geography should be a fundamental part of every child's education

2. Geography had powerful integrating qualities in itself 'with strong links in both the sciences and the arts' and should not be seen as just a humanities subject

3. Direct observation and investigation of the environment was an important part of geographical work and should be undertaken by every pupil

4. Geography could be a vehicle for the study and discussion of controversial social and environmental issues and therefore should be studied by all up to the age of 16.

The GA tried to arrange a meeting with Mr. Baker unsuccessfully, so worked on 'A Case for Geography', edited by Patrick Bailey and Tony Binns.

This arrived on Ken Baker's desk in 1987. Baker had studied History at Oxford and he wanted to change that.

According to Rex Walford, when the GA's delegation finally arrived at his office in June 1987, he told them that Geography would find a distinctive place in the National Curriculum he was about to announce. 

This didn't turn out to be as clear cut as he had suggested. Baker had to defend his plans against Margaret Thatcher who wanted to change them.

I was broadly aware of the changes in the offing as I was completing my PGCE at this time.

The next stage was to put together a Geography Working Group to advise DES officials. This met for the first time in May 1989.

References

Rex Walford's book on UK School Geography - it is well worth reading the section on this period in this book if you can, as Rex talks about the various threats that geography safely navigated at this time, some of which were beyond the influence of the GA....