Routes Volume 2 Issue 2 - an article featuring this blog

This is the 2nd issue of the 2nd volume of the ROUTES journal.

Routes is a peer-reviewed digital journal for sixth form and undergraduate geographers looking to read and publish geographical knowledge. They publish work from all areas of geographical scholarship, including both human and physical geography. Routes is a free, open-access journal with no pay-walls or subscriptions. It is free to submit and review work for Routes and there are no deadlines for submission.

Well worth seeking out, particularly as I am pleased to have an article in the journal of my own research into the people who have previously held the position of GA President which is located in this very blog.

The editorial for the issue is here.

Well done to the other contributors to this issue as well:

Examining the impact of the East Coast Low Storm, June 2016 on Narrabeen-Collaroy Beach, Sydney, Australia

Anna Pennington (Teacher of Geography at Pangbourne College)

Landscape assessment: A useful tool for A Level enquiry

By Edward Jones (Geography Teacher at Buxton Community School)

Walking in Paris: locating hidden sights in the city

By Emily Chandler (Geography Teacher at St George’s The British International School – Düsseldorf Rhein-Ruhr)

I particularly like this article as it connects with some of the influences of my GA Presidential theme of 'Everyday Geographies'.

Exploring the interactions between children’s sense of self and their sense of place through sport

By Zoë Sayliss (Geography Teacher at Berkhamsted School)

The importance and relevance of geographies of wellness to A Level independent research

By Charlotte Fulham (Geography Teacher at Bedford Free School)

Why not suggest to your students that they write and submit an article for a future issue - all the information on how to do that is on the Routes website.

Thanks to editors Cyrus Nayeri and Lizzie Rushton, and the peer reviewers and to all those who have supported the journal in various ways, including submitting articles.

Cite my article as shown below:

Parkinson, A. (2022) Researching the changing professional profile of the Geographical Association’s Presidents 1893-2021. Routes 2(2): 67-79

Pandemic Presidents

It occurred to me that Gill Miller, Susan Pike and myself are the latest in a series of "pandemic Presidents": those whose term of office have fallen during a pandemic. Hopefully Alastair Owens' will be immediately post-pandemic.

The last time that there was a similar pandemic was following the first World War.

At the time, the Spanish Flu apparently led to 1918 being the first year when deaths were higher than births.

The President in 1918 was Sir William Mitchell Ramsay

The President in 1919 was Professor Grenville A J Cole, FSA

It would be fascinating to find out more about the impact that the Spanish Flu had on the workings of the GA at the time.

On the move to Fulwood Road

An interesting article on the move from Park Library and the potential for visitors...

Something that might be returned to perhaps in due course.

Reference

Garnett, Alice. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 49, no. 1, Geographical Association, 1964, pp. 59–72, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40565765.

IGU - a call for paper abstracts

This information will be appearing in a number of locations, including the GA website over the next month.

There is a month to the deadline for submitting a paper as part of a session that I have had approved at the IGU in Paris in July 2022. It's also a month to the deadline for early bird booking.

This may be of niche interest to some reading this, but it is posted so that I can direct those who may be interested and attending the event to see the full details. The final results will also be of direct interest to those who teach in any capacity as we explore the idea of a curriculum framework.

This will be the 100th IGU Conference in Paris in July 2022.

My session at the IGU’s centennial conference will continue a long tradition of GA / IGU engagement, involving former GA Presidents including Norman Graves and Sir Dudley Stamp. I will draw on previous employment as the GA’s Secondary Curriculum Leader and experience in developing curriculum artefacts and vignettes to help bring curriculum documents to life. This will hopefully be the start of a renewed international conversation about curriculum: to reconnect with each other after several years of enforced separation.

Title of proposed session:

Developing a curriculum framework for Geography at national level

The session is described as follows:

The Geographical Association (GA) has pursued its mission ‘to further geographical knowledge and understanding through education’ since 1893, during which time it has undertaken successive exercises to reframe the school geography curriculum in the UK and further afield.

One of the GA’s flagship initiatives at present is a fundamental review of curriculum thinking in geography education.

This initiative has taken a very wide range of evidence and perspectives into account to work on the production of a geography curriculum framework that is informed by research and practice, reflects the contemporary world and discipline and can be used by the Association to exert influence on national and international curriculum conversations in the future. This work is being led by Eleanor Rawling, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Oxford Department of Education, and will emerge during 2022.

The curriculum framework will be introduced at the session, along with a description of some of the other projects which influenced the thinking. Key issues around such work will be explored, with reference to other national curricula. The curriculum framework also creates opportunities for teachers to develop deeper (powerful) knowledge and equip students with choices about whether and how they wish to act, as well as a better understanding of how and why others do/do not act in the same way.

Alan will outline his ‘Curriculum Vitae’ - a curriculum for life: to engage young people and equip them with key questions that they will carry forward with them beyond their schooling. The Climate Emergency and other global issues should be threads running through any new curriculum, but teachers need support in considering how such issues can become objects of study, so that they may be examined in school without the attendant real-world pressures we otherwise face when dealing with complex social, political and environmental challenges. Should this be part of the framework, or the associated guidance? Such questions will be discussed.

If you would like to get involved, please get in touch. The IGU website has reopened during December and early January for the submission of papers and there will then be a selection process to create the programme for the session that I will chair.

The IGU website will be open for submissions until January the 11th 2022. These are abstracts at this stage.

Go here to submit your abstracts

https://www.ugiparis2022.org/fr/soumission-de-resumes/29

Summaries are possible in two formats:

Oral communication: Presentation of 15 minutes maximum, in one of the working languages ​​of the session (see the presentation sheet of the session to which you are submitting your proposal)

E-poster: If your e-poster proposal is accepted by the session organizer (s), the poster must respect the charter (.pdf format) and be placed in the E-Poster area accessible with your identifier, before June 15, 2022 .

Summary format
The sessions will be organized on the principle of one or more session (s) lasting 1h45, each corresponding to 4 presentations of 15 min maximum and 5 min of discussion.

Submission of an abstract
Abstracts must be submitted in French or in English.

The submission form must clearly specify the working language of the communication, with reference to the languages ​​proposed in the session. There will be no interpretation service during the sessions, unless the session organizers offer and provide it themselves.

The sessions will take place face-to-face or virtually; there will be no hybrid sessions.

Submission format

Title : 255 characters maximum, spaces included
Summary : 2000 characters maximum, spaces included
Keywords : 5 maximum
References : 5 maximum

Make sure your paper is linked to the session in the Geographical Education section of the event.



We will share the date and time of the session in the final programme as soon as we can.

Get in touch if you would like to know more details.

GA Awards - deadline approaching for this year

The deadline for many of the GA's Awards is the end of December, and some are at the end of January.

If you are a GA member you can nominate someone for an Award, particularly if they are involved in one of the GA's areas of activity such as the Volunteer Groups, Journal articles, GA Branch activity or some other role.

Details of the awards, nomination forms and other information on the awards is here.

Each year, at the GA’s Annual Conference, the Association presents a number of awards to recognise and celebrate the contribution of individuals towards geography education. GA awards include:

1. Honorary Membership
Honorary Membership (normally one award per year) – this is the highest award made by the GA, in return for sustained and outstanding service to the Association. It confers lifelong and complimentary membership of the GA on its recipients. Read a list of GA Honorary Members here. Download the Honorary Membership of the GA nomination form here.

2. GA Annual Awards for Excellence
GA Annual Awards for Excellence (up to two awards) – for an individual who has made a significant contribution to furthering geographical knowledge and understanding through education and/or to the work of the GA over the previous year. Read a list of past recipients here . Download the GA Annual Award for Excellence nomination form here.

3. Distinguished Service Award
GA Distinguished Service Award (download nomination form) - for an individual who has made a notable contribution to the work of the GA and its charitable mission, particularly through specialist volunteer groups in the geographical community over a sustained period of time.

4. GA Outstanding Service Certificates and Diploma
GA Outstanding Service Certificates (download nomination form) - for outstanding service by a GA branch member to their local branch.
GA Outstanding Service Diploma (download nomination form) - for outstanding service to the GA through participation on GA committees or special interest groups.

5. GA Certificate
GA Certificate (download nomination form) – for the completion of three years service on a GA committee or special interest group.

6. GA Rex Walford Award
GA Rex Walford Award - for inspirational and innovative practice for those undertaking primary or secondary geography initial teacher education.

Further information about each of the awards including eligibility, nominations and judging is available to download below, together with the appropriate nomination forms.

Additional awards presented annually by the GA include:
Excellence in Leading Geography - journal articles judged to have made the greatest contribution to the development of good practice in geography teaching, as voted for by GA members. Recent recipients are published in GA Magazine. The awards will be presented at the GA Annual Conference.
GA Publishers' Awards - previous awardees are listed on our GA Publishers' Awards pages.
Geography Quality Marks – to reward and promote high quality geography in primary and secondary schools.

Please consider nominating someone for an award. If you don't nominate them they have very little chance of winning.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

The Geographical Club

The Geographical Club, formerly called the Raleigh Club, is a dining club closely associated with the Royal Geographical Society. It was founded in 1826, so is coming up to its bicentenary. 

The history of the club features many names associated with exploration and travel.

On 24th May 1830, a momentous meeting of the Club took place. Sir John Barrow ( Second Secretary of the Admiralty) was in the Chair , and a motion was proposed, ‘ that a new and useful Society might …. be formed, under the name of The Geographical Society of London.’ The submission that led to this proposal was that, ‘….among the numerous literary and scientific societies established in the British metropolis, one was still wanting to complete the circle of scientific institutions, whose sole object should be the promotion and diffusion of that most important and entertaining branch of knowledge, GEOGRAPHY.’ Thus, The Raleigh Club had the distinction of being the parent body of The Geographical Society of London, later receiving the patronage of William IV to become the Royal Geographical Society.

Source: http://www.primestrategy.com/geogclub/history.html

Seven former GA Presidents have been the President of the Club:

• Douglas Freshfield
• Lord Nathan
• Charles Close
• Harry Lindsay
• Colonel Sir Thomas Holdich
• L Dudley Stamp
• Michael Wise

The first President of the Club was the geologist Sir Roderick Murchison.

A Geographer's Gaze

A couple of months ago, I went up to Solly Street to have another meeting for our Geographers' Gaze project.

We have identified some images from the archive and have created some lesson materials for their use in a number of contexts. They will be appearing on the GA website in 2022, along with other guidance for using images generally and a little context about the significance of lantern slides in the GA's history (and geography).

Thanks to the other members of the team, and to Brian Ellis for funding the project.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

10 000 members

Yesterday, a piece that I had written went up on the GA website to celebrate the fact that we had broken through the 10 000 member mark for the first time in quite some time after decades of slow decline in GA membership. 

This is really encouraging and also a challenge for the Association to continue to provide the quality of support and services that members expect and deserve, and also to retain members. It's important for the work that the GA does that we are speaking on behalf of so many people when it comes to consultations and policy work. Thanks to everyone who has joined us and continues to support the Geographical Association.

GA Presidency Month 3: November 2021

The 3rd month of my Presidential term started with the 2nd week of my half term. Previously this has been used for overseas trips: Iceland or somewhere in Europe and occasionally returning from SAGT conference. This time it was more home based, and involved quite a lot of writing and work on ERASMUS projects.

I had the usual mix of events large and small which I had signed up to present.

Planning and emails regarding the GA Conference 2022 continued of course with speakers to add and additional work around that.

I attended the AGM and Committee meetings of my local GA Branch: the Cambridge and District GA branch. I will be speaking in 2022 on my conference theme.

COP26 began at the very start of November. The GA has been involved in a range of activity around the themes of the conference, and the importance of the decisions taken there. COP took place during the first couple of weeks and there were various links, including the arrival of my DressCode shirt.

I spoke to some students in Scotland as well, while standing in a wood on the UEA Campus. This was then used in some way at COP26.

Our COP26 Climate Emergency Newsroom team were delighted to interview Alan Parkinson, President of the Geographical Association today in preparation for their week in the Glasgow University newsroom next week. Thank you, Alan @GeoBlogs pic.twitter.com/YGzzs6DPwq

— Lesmahagow High School (@LesmahagowHigh) November 5, 2021

We also had some good news that a proposal we had put forward for the UGI-IGU in Paris was accepted. This is based around the work that the GA is doing in the area of curriculum thinking. This is an area I used to work for the GA in of course.

I will be sharing more on this through GA channels as we will be looking for possible contributions and e-posters in this area for our session in July 2022.

Eleanor Rawling is leading the work on the curriculum framework for the GA, and we will be putting out a call for papers in a few days time.

In the 2nd week of the month, there were a few other events which I took part in.

GA SIG Wales - I had been invited by Gill Miller, President in 2019-20 to take part in an event on transition around the new Curriculum for Wales.

Check out the work they are already doing on the curriculum frameworks on the SIG Wales page of the GA website.

I did a small input and was then followed by some other speakers:

You have a month from the time of this post to catch up with an event which I presented at on Wednesday this week for the SIG Wales Volunteer Group.

https://t.co/5IOA8ecjd0. Available for 30 days. Find out more about the Welsh Special Interest Group on the GA website, including details of the Curriculum Scaffolds mentioned in the webinar. You can also follow them on twitter @GASIGWales. 🌍

— Laura Gilleland (@LauraGilleland) November 11, 2021

You can watch me speaking from 4 minutes in - the sound gets a little muffled toward the end - which seems to be happening a little at the moment with my laptop.

The presentation slides are here:

Building a transition Curriculum from GeoBlogs

If anyone has any questions, please get in touch...

One key event happened in November, which happens three times a year: a meeting of the GA's Governing Body. Governing Body meeting takes place face to face where possible, alhough my last face to face one took place in February 2020 over in Preston Montford in Shropshire.

The President joins Governing Body (GB) for the duration of their Presidential journey. This now lasts for three years, but I was the last person for whom this was a four year journey.

It was good to meet up with new staff members at Solly Street and actually have the whole Presidential team in the building for the first time ever (in our case) and for several years in general.

The following weekend was my own daughter's graduation.

Earlier in the week I was interviewed by Dorian Brown of Teachers Talk Radio. It was a good chat about the power of Subject Associations and my journey to being President. Click here for the link.

Wednesday the 24th of November was the Oxford GA Branch Lecture - 'Your Place or Mine'  as well: the David Pilgrim Lecture

This is a variation of a lecture which I have done before at a nnumber of venues. It was hosted by St. Edwards School (Teddies) in Oxford - a long drive over and back.There was a really good crowd of students - the largest audience of the year, although Tim Marshall is doing next week's lecture. It was my first face to face event for quite some time as well.

There were also one or two issues with conference as speakers pulled out and I had to work to find replacements. Work also continued with visits by colleagues to the conference venue to scope out the hybrid nature of the event.

The month ended with delivery of the new GA textbooks for KS3 which have been created and which are excellent as well.

Here are the Twitter statistics for the month to finish:

I am now a quarter of the way through the Presidency. Time is going quickly, and I will be half way through before I know it I'm sure.

Wishing everyone a restful Christmas break in advance. 

December's monthly update will appear in early January 2022.

Norman Graves and the IGU

A few weeks ago, we heard that a sesssion proposal that I put in has been accepted for the IGU.

The International Geographical Union (IGU) has its centenary conference in Paris in 2022.

Its title is: 

Developing a curriculum framework for Geography at national level

The session is described as follows: 

The Geographical Association (GA) has pursued its mission ‘to further geographical knowledge and understanding through education’ since 1893, during which time it has undertaken successive exercises to reframe the school geography curriculum in the UK and further afield. 

One of the GA’s flagship initiatives at present is a fundamental review of curriculum thinking in geography education. 

This initiative has taken a very wide range of evidence and perspectives into account in order to produce a geography curriculum framework that is informed by research and practice, reflects the contemporary world and discipline and can be used by the Association to exert influence on national and international curriculum conversations in the future. 

Its presentation, for discussion, at the IGU’s centennial conference continues a long tradition of GAIGU engagement, involving former GA Presidents including Norman Graves and Sir Dudley Stamp. There will be inputs, possibly remote or pre-recorded from those people involved in the development of the curriculum framework: an initiative led by Eleanor Rawling, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Oxford Department of Education. 

The curriculum framework will be introduced, along with a description of some of the other projects which influenced the thinking. Key issues around such work will be explored, with reference to other national curricula. 

One aim is to create a ‘Curriculum Vitae’ - a curriculum for life: to engage young people and equip them with key questions that they will carry forward with them beyond their schooling. The Climate Emergency and other global issues should be threads running through any new curriculum, but teachers need support in considering how such issues can become objects of study, so that they may be examined in school without the attendant real-world pressures we otherwise face when dealing with complex social, political and environmental challenges. Should this be part of the framework, or the associated guidance? Such questions will be discussed. 

The curriculum framework also creates opportunities for teachers to develop deeper (powerful) knowledge and equip students with choices about whether and how they wish to act, as well as a better understanding of how and why others do/do not act in the same way. 

Current GA President Alan Parkinson was previously the Geographical Association’s Curriculum Leader and is a practising teacher with much experience in developing curriculum artefacts and vignettes to help bring curriculum documents to life. Ideas for breathing life into the framework will also be explored and shared. This will hopefully be the start of a renewed international conversation about curriculum: to reconnect with each other after several years of enforced separation.

If you would like to get involved, please get in touch. The IGU website will be reopened during December and early January for the submission of papers and there will then be a selection process to create the programme for the session that I will chair.

I will be channelling a former GA President who was heavily involved with the IGU for many years, and wrote this excellent book in 1979: Professor Norman Graves. He has his own entry on the blog. It will also draw on the current work of another former GA President: Eleanor Rawling.

GA Birmingham Branch

One of the aspects of the Presidential year that I always planned to do was to speak to as many GA Branches as wanted me to be there...

I won't be making thelong journey across country to Birmingham next Wednesday but will be joining the GA Branch there by Zoom to do a session at the end of the day.

Details of the session are here:

Wednesday 1^st December 2021 4-5pm

"A day in the Life: Enquiring into Everyday Geographies in the curriculum" 

Teacher talk

Mr Alan Parkinson, CGeog, FRGS, FRSGS

Head of Geography at King's Ely (Junior), author & freelance geography consultant 

President, Geographical Association 21-22

RSGS Tivy Medal winner 2013

@GeoBlogs

Alan Parkinson is an inspirational geographer and teacher who is the current President of the Geographical Association. This talk will be of great interest to all Geography teachers whatever their experience of teaching from trainee teachers to teachers of many years. This is a highlight of this year’s talks.

I hope it's a highlight :) Looking forward to finding out what I'm going to say. I may just talk about Peppa Pig World...

Talking on the radio

This morning was the broadcast of an interview I had with Dorian Brown: a host on Teachers Talk Radio. Many former GA Presidents have found themselves on the radio, or television, and there are a few YouTube clips of former Presidents on some of the entries on this blog.

You can listen again here:

We talked about the GA and blogging and a whole range of other things. 

If you enjoyed it, check out some of Dorian's other recent guests, also from the GA 'community'.

Your commute for later sorted...

SIG Wales Seminar

You have a month from the time of this post to catch up with an event which I presented at on Wednesday this week for the SIG Wales Volunteer Group.

https://t.co/5IOA8ecjd0. Available for 30 days. Find out more about the Welsh Special Interest Group on the GA website, including details of the Curriculum Scaffolds mentioned in the webinar. You can also follow them on twitter @GASIGWales. 🌍

— Laura Gilleland (@LauraGilleland) November 11, 2021

You can watch me speaking from 4 minutes in - the sound gets a little muffled toward the end - which seems to be happening a little at the moment with my laptop.

The presentation slides are here:

Building a transition Curriculum from GeoBlogs

If anyone has any questions, please get in touch...

GA Presidency Month 2: October 2021

This is the second month of my updates on what I have been up to as GA President, to show what is involved (as much as possible) and also let others who may want to apply know that it is possible to take on the role alongside other responsibilities. It also comes just a week before the deadline to put your name forward to be President for 2023-4.

As always, there were many daily emails on a whole range of topics, many of which can't be shared here.

The month started with a few events for the Geographical Association which involve the President specifically.

Governance Working Group is a small sub-group which supports the Governing Body. This includes the Honorary Treasurer and others, and follows other meetings between other senior members of the Association to consider strategy. This meets termly, with other ad hoc meetings happening in between.

The Early Career Teacher's eConference had a good range of delegates. I chaired the event, and also spoke. I enjoyed all our varied speakers who brought their own styles, messages and energy to the event. This took place on a Saturday and we had a good range of sessions. I hosted and led the day as I did for the previous SCSIG session on COP26 a few weeks ago. The event was well attended.

Sessions included:

• My own session on belonging to a subject community
• Gemma Collins from the University of Birmingham on 'How to build a geographer' - a lovely session
• Katy Salter on the creation of resources - very useful advice here
• Tanith Ludlam on making the most of ECT experiences - a member of the GA's SPC

GA Branches are starting to come back to life again and plan their programmes and I'm pleased to have been invited to speak at several of them. The GA Cambridge Branch has the support of a couple of former GA Presidents: Keith Grimwade and Chris Kington, and I have spoken at their events a number of times. They had their AGM which I attended. I also responded to invitations to speak. 

If any GA Branch officer needs further support, or would like to invite me to come along and speak at their branch, please get in touch.

There was also a meeting of the Geographers' Gaze project team, uncovering some of the GA's Lantern Slides and writing accompanying materials.

ERASMUS+ is something which has been lost (hopefully not for good) for UK schools and universities as a result of the poor decisions made during the Brexit process.

I am involved in two final projects currently on behalf of school and this month also saw our first face to face meeting of the partners for the GI Pedagogy project. We hosted the partners at King's Ely. We weren't able to have the usual social events that we would have normally done and the meeting was a little truncated too compared to previous mobilities. The project is about applying Rosenshine's principles to teaching with GIS, and developing a model for this, which is just about complete.

If you would like to be involved in trialling our GIS resources and teacher training course then please get in touch with me.

Our European visitors were able to enjoy a Sunday roast in their hotel, attend evensong in Ely Cathedral and also enjoy a traditional Turkish meal...  I'll return to Turkey later.

I have also been working to finalise my input to the teacher training course which has been created by the D3: Developing Digital Data Literacy project. The first three modules have been fully finished, and I am also uploading some further materials to the website to finalise the 4th module which draws on the previous three. The context for this is the '15 minute city' and I was pleased to have a brief Twitter exchange with Carlos Moreno, who developed the idea.

This explores open data and how it can be used to help young people to make important decisions in their lives, now and in the future. It's also about understanding that their use of technology, which has increased during the last couple of years is creating a huge amount of data which could be valuable and also say a lot about them to advertisers and other companies such as Meta (the rebranded umbrella body including Facebook)

If you would like to be involved in trialling our Open Data resources and teacher training course then please get in touch with me.

The Turkish Geographers' Congress is called UCEK or IGCU, and this was the 3rd running of this large event with hundreds of papers and other sessions. I was one of the invited international speakers, which was an honour and had to cram it into a working day. I also did a Q and A with one of the organisers Eyüp Artvinli and the Australian geographer Susan Caldis.

I enjoyed speaking to over 200 Turkish geographers around the theme of Everyday Geographies. The session can be viewed on Facebook here, minus the opening minute of my talk, when I introduced myself to the delegates. I was very pleased to have been part of this international event.

I also involved myself in other events.

I am also awaiting the IGU's response to a session proosal for their conference in 2022. The date for this has now been put back into November so I am hoping that I might be able to attend the event in Paris later in my Presidency and also take in a visit to the iGEO Competition which would involve offering my support to the team selected as part of the Worldwise competition organised by the GA. There is a long association between the GA and the IGU, particularly via Norman Graves. This forms part of his entry on the GA Presidents blog.

The following Monday I spoke at a seminar organised by the Prince's Teaching Institute.

There was a session from me on how COVID19 has changed geographical thinking and elements of the curriculum. Thanks to those who came along. I shared a chronology of the pandemic and then the PTI Teacher Leader Catherine Bradley took over and worked with the delegates to connect it to the curriculum.

The SAGT Conference is a regular fixture on my annual calendar. I have attended many years since 2005, and this year was a second online conference of the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers. I presented on 'Landscapes of Abandonment' to fit the theme of rewilding. There were some very interesting keynotes on Scotland's landscape and the Alladale reserve connected with some current work. I was also delighted that 'Why Study Geography?' won a Highly Commended in the SAGT Publishers' Awards. I've previously won the Best Book Award but not this time.

There were lots of 'smaller' actions as well.

I sent off the 2nd draft of an article to Routes Journal on the research that I carried out to produce the GA Presidents blog. This was in response to the peer review. I also researched some images. This has been accepted for publication and I will share the link to the article once it is published early in the New Year.

GA Conference planning occupied a lot of time of course, with plenty of emails trying to finalise different elements.

This included the Future Geographers strand which is for students. It includes a link to elements of the main conference, and usually includes the President and Vice President as well. We will be publicising more details of this once finalised.

As always, I had conversations with numerous people on a range of topics including:

- the forthcoming Governing Body meeting in Sheffield

- forthcoming journal contents and articles

- GA Innovation Fund judging - this was completed and those who applied will find out the results in November

- sending off booking form for the Charney Manor Conference in February 2022.

I also signed the CSA for a forthcoming publication in 2022.

My LivingGeography blog also passed 6 million page views this month. Thanks for visiting. There's a lot of geography in just one site. Use the SEARCH function whatever you're teaching to find something useful.

I also read a lot of the new book by Parag Khanna called 'Move' and an excellent book by Jer Thorp called 'Living in Data'. 

Parag's book has some accompanying education materials which are worth taking a look at.

I also did some consultancy for a firm developing some exciting new materials - more when they emerge as well.

And finally, you have a week to apply to be the President of the GA for 2023-4 (following Alastair Owens) - deadline is 8th of November.

Twitter analytics for the month again.

Looking back, October has been rather busy. Let's see what November has to offer.

GA Governing Body Vacancy - one week to go

One of the groups of people that operates to 'create' the GA and its day to day decision making and operations is the Governing Body. Members includs the Presidents during their period of office, Named Trustees and co-opted members as well as elected Trustees. 

The deadline is now the 8th of November.

GA Conference 2022

The conference theme is  Everyday Geographies.

Yesterday was a good day as the first emails went out to those who submitted a proposal for the GA Conference in April 2022. Immediately there were some very excited people on Twitter sharing the news.

Along with the submitted proposals there's also a whole programme of invited speakers who will be announced in the coming months.

There will also be some other emails coming out as well next week, so if you submitted a proposal and haven't heard from us, please check your spam (depends on the sensitivity of your work systems) or wait until the end of next week. There are still a few slots to be filled. The President is always involved heavily in the conference, including choosing the theme. For many decades, there were conference organisers, who have featured on the blog in previous posts.

Here's a sample of the tweets that were sent out on the day:

Thrilled to hear proposal for @The_GA conference 2022 has been accepted. We are thrilled to share our lively, practical workshop #PlaceMotifs linking place, colour & everyday geographies. Come along to share ideas of curious practices and geo-response-abilities 😊#GAConf22 pic.twitter.com/cVJhoxbJTo

— Clarke&Witt (@Attention2place) October 22, 2021

Really excited to be hosting a session at the #gaconf22 with @SusanJPike on transitions in geography! 🌍

— Denise Freeman 🌎🙋🏻‍♀️ (@geography_DAF) October 22, 2021

Delighted to have news from @The_GA & @GeoBlogs that proposal for @RGS_IBGschools on 'What do young people actually think about geography' accepted for #gaconf22. Be sharing research with 500 YP on why they did/didn't #choosegeography, views on the subject & options re. careers

— Steve Brace (@SteveBraceGeog) October 22, 2021

Great to see all the tweets this afternoon from folks getting emails of approval for presentations @The_GA conference next April. And I got a couple too, including one where I'll be presenting with @HafsaBobat on tectonic misconceptions & how to address them in geography! pic.twitter.com/IkEknauszm

— Alistair Hamill (@lcgeography) October 22, 2021

@DrCNayeri & @RushtonDr will be contributing a workshop at #gaconf22 ‘Supporting students to publish their ‘everyday geographies’ in #Routes - excited to continue to conversation 🌎🌟📚📘🖌🎞🎨

— Routes Geography Journal (@routesjournal) October 22, 2021

New GA KS3 textbook

Great to see the new KS3 textbook published by the GA is now available and I have ordered a class set.

This has an excellent design and content.

This resource introduces students in years 7–9 to key geographical concepts, topics, themes, places and skills from the key stage 3 Programme of Study and beyond. The 18 chapters consider themes in human and natural environments and explore the connections and interactions between them.

Written by practising teachers and geography educators, the book aims to:
enthuse and engage students, making them more globally aware and environmentally minded
help students develop a better understanding and appreciation of the world
introduce key geographical knowledge, build understanding and develop skills that will be needed for GCSE, while keeping key stage 3 (or equivalent) a distinctive phase of education
introduce themes early on and revisit them later in different contexts to consolidate learning
suggest different approaches and ways of thinking in geography.

Each chapter contains:

• an introductory page containing starter activities and an outline of key themes, concepts and topics covered within it
• five or six double-page spreads containing information and case study material to engage students, along with location maps and activities to help students become better geographers
• a review page with activities to consolidate the learning from the chapter.

There's a great author and editing team and all led by Elaine Anderson and colleagues at Solly Street.

Let us know what you think of the book when you order your copy... you will be ordering a copy won#t you :)

Joint declaration on the Climate and Biodiversity Emergencies

The Geographical Association is one of the signatories of this joint declaration. It has been signed by many of the international geographical societies and associations.

Turkish International Geography Congress

One of the aspects of the Presidential role that has not changed is that the President receives lots of invitations to speak at events, both in the 

This morning, I spoke to 200 Turkish geographers at the 3rd International Congress on Geographical Eduction along with geography educators from a number of other countries. This is my presentation.

The presentation was also broadcast live with simultaneous Turkish translation on Facebook. Here is a link to the presentation if you want to watch it, and the answers to the questions that followed.

I also took the opportunity to network over possible international projects to connect the GA with other international organisations.

New Research Engagement Lead opportunity

The GA is looking for a new member of the team providing support for teachers. Here are the details of the exciting post which is for a two year period.

The details of the post and application forms are on this link, where you can also request further information.

The increased prominence of research in education has prompted the GA to create a new post within its staff team in order to deliver key aspects of its organisational strategy. Specifically, these include deepening the understanding of the purposes and practices of geography in education, leading debate on the value of geography, demonstrating its contribution to education and society in the 21st century and bridging the developments in the discipline of geography with school practice.

As Research engagement lead you will take primary responsibility for helping the GA to meet these strategic objectives by seeking and securing partnerships, projects and relationships that strengthen the GA’s work across the Higher Education and school sectors. You will also draw on your own research expertise to ensure that the GA’s work is informed by education research and supports teachers of geography in developing their research literacy in order to develop their practice.

We are looking for someone with the ability to lead this strand of the GA’s work, who is an excellent communicator to a variety of audiences and has excellent organisational skills. You will need to be adaptable, work independently and manage a workload which varies throughout the year.

Salary: £40,000 - £44,500 fte
Closing date: Friday 5 November 2021

Looking to work for the GA? We've got a vacancy for a Research Engagement Lead, if you're interested and want the full specification go to >>> https://t.co/VDHd3HzHTs pic.twitter.com/vnkfVXowfs

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) October 13, 2021

GA Presidency Month 1: September 2021

I've now completed the first month of my year as President of the GA, and it's been an interesting and very busy one, along with the return to school for another academic year with new groups and a new timetable to get used to along the way. I can see why it's been a while since we had a teacher as GA President, but that's not to say we shouldn't have another one asap, following on from the tenure of Alastair Owens for 2022-23. 

I plan to post an update here at the end of each of the 12 months so you can see what I get up to, and the range of activity that a President is involved in.

I received an article that I had written for Routes Journal back from the peer reviewers with some comments on changes to make ahead of publication in early 2022. This is one job I've been looking at. The article explores the research that I did for the GA Presidents blog over the last two and a half years.

Given my theme of everyday geographies there's certainly been something to do everyday: emails to answer, queries to answer and conversations with many of the GA's staff at Solly Street - the HQ in Sheffield. I've had messages and some lovely messages via Twitter DMs, email, Facebook, WhatsApp and various other means.

The first week involved a field trip with Year 4 students to the Norfolk coast - a great day and a reminder of the value of fieldwork. 2022 will see our planned National Fieldwork Week which I am involved in. Look out for more on this in the GA News for Autumn 2021.

There was also the hosting of a one hour session on COP26 with a range of guest speakers - see earlier on LivingGeography for all the links to the presentations. Thanks to all those who presented, including former GA colleague Paula Owens who closed the event.

The second week started with the release of the results of the moderation of applications for a number of funding opportunities that the GA offers. Some of these are for members of our volunteer groups, others are for everyone.

There have been discussions and emails and Zooms around a number of projects and areas:

- the GA's Governance Working Group and smaller groups

- the Geographers' Gaze project to open up the archives a little, with former President Peter Fox involved

- a publication I'm working on for release in 2022 which has been much changed from the original format and now requires a little reworking

- items for GA journals now and in future issues - my Webwatch column for January 2022 is already underway, for example along with a piece for Primary Geography 

- National Fieldwork Week planning and thinking

In the third week, focus moved to Conference Planning, and Conference 2022. This is a huge undertaking and there were lengthy meetings with the whole Planning Board to look at the sessions which had been submitted - well over 100 - along with those who I had personally invited. It was the first look at the overall possible format, and some planning ahead for the hybrid conference. Isabel and Becky are pulling things together for another chat in a week's time.

I'm really looking forward to letting people know some of the exciting people we have presenting at the event.

I also completed a presentation slide deck for an education conference in Turkey at which I am an invited speaker, so that it could be sent for translating ahead of the event - the theme is 'Everyday Geographies' and I'm also mentioning my book 'Why Study Geography?' which has been reviewed in RIGEO recently and also elsewhere. I also continued to work on my slide deck for the Scottish Association of Geography Teachers' Conference next month on the theme of 'rewilding'.

We traditionally exchange fraternal greetings at our respective conferences and I've been attending regularly since 2004. 

Alongside that I also planned a 3 days ERASMUS+ meeting to take place at my school and worked on some of the resources that are required for it. This will be a chance to welcome international colleagues for the first time in over two years. We had Zoom meetings for the 2 projects. Plenty about those on LivingGeography.

There was also a meeting of the GA's Education Group. This is the main group that supports the Governing Body and staff at HQ with key thinking. It is chaired by the President and this involved rather a lot of preparation and reading and knowledge of the ByLaws and other aspects of the GA's operation. I know almost every member having visited their groups or worked with them in some way.

The final week included further discussions over conference and funding, and follow ups from the EG meeting. There was also a chat with Olwen Lintern-Smyth: Chair of the GA's Trustees.

I ended today by submitting an exciting proposal form for an international conference in 2022, connected with an important GA initiative that is currently underway.

Preparations are also being made for our next meeting of the GA's Governing Body. This will occupy some time in tomorrow's meeting, which I shall tell you all about at the end of October when I share my month 2 update. The full list of the Governing Body is in GA Magazine. 

I'll also start the 2nd month by hosting and presenting at an eConference for Early Career Teachers all day on Saturday, and re-recording a bit of audio for my involvement in a well known Geography podcast to be released next month.

If you think that the Presidential for 2023-4 might be you, check out the opportunity here and in the latest GA News. Also feel free to get in touch - I've had a few conversations in that area too.

GA Magazine - featuring the blog

Good to see this GA Magazine article featuring this blog - although I was asked to write it so knew it would be in there. It's in the Autumn 2021 issue, which can be downloaded by GA Members - physical copies will be arriving any time now.

The image is a cartoon of James Fairgrieve which was sent to me by the archivist of William Ellis School, which has some strong connections with the GA.

GA Study Tours - 2022

The last few GA Study Tours have unfortunately had to be cancelled, but there are now plans for a tour to Nicaragua in 2022. Details are shown below, and were also featured in the latest GA Magazine.

Previous tours have involved a great many Presidents in leading them, and also participating in them... previous blog posts with the label 'Study Tour' are worth reading.

SAGT Conference 2021

The Scottish Association of Geography Teacher's annual conference is being held online this year. The President of the GA traditionally gives fraternal greetings and I have been there in person to see about 8 or 9 Presidents do that.

The theme is rewilding.

Tickets are now available on Eventbrite.

Programme
10:00 Welcome

SAGT Presidential Address, Fraternal Greetings from Geographical Association, Publishers awards

10:30 Keynote 1 - Paul Lister The European Nature Trust

Paul Lister bought the Alladale estate in 2003. Paul will speak about his life before Alladale, his purchase of the reserve and how he and his team have approached his 'wild' vision. He will also discuss some of the projects which are being undertaken including the wild boar and European elk projects.

11:15 Workshops

Geographies of Abandonment: Developing case studies around the rewilding of abandoned places - Alan Parkinson
Cultivating Climate Justice through Curriculum Change - Frances Hobbs
Carbon and Rewilding-Neil Kitching
Beavers and Buffers - nature based solutions for the climate and extinction emergency - James Wallace
12:00 Keynote 2 - Peter Cairns

Peter calls his talk 'A Rewilding Journey'. Using stunning imagery created by the 'SCOTLAND: The Big Picture' photography team, this presentation showcases the country's beauty and drama, but also poses an intriguing question: What should Scotland look like?

12:50 Vote of thanks/ Raffle

All participants will be able to access recordings of all the workshops.

COP26 Session

Go here to view an event which I hosted and presented at during the 2nd week of my GA Presidency. It was put together by the GA's Sustainability and Citizenship SIG.

Remembering Sheila Jones

A piece which appeared in the Autumn 2021 issue of GA Magazine.

Written by former Presidents Richard Daugherty, Jeremy Krause and John Westaway.

It could be you...

 Back in 2017, I submitted an application to be the President of the Geographical Association. I was approached by a few members who thought that I might a good person to take on the role.

It turns out that I was successful in the application and as a result became the Junior Vice President the following September (a role that no longer exists now we have a Chair of Trustees), Vice President the year after and then President from September the 1st.

The vacancy has now become available for the President for 2023-24. 

There are details in the GA Magazine, which has now been made available to download by GA Members on the website (physical copies will be on their way shortly).

It could be you!

It would be fantastic to see a really diverse range of applicants this year. 

There are various under-represented groups in the body of over 100 former Presidents, who have all been researched in my blog here (which also features in the latest GA Magazine),

Contact me if you have any questions. I've already had a few messages about this.

GA Conference 2022

The early bird booking for the GA Conference in 2022 is now available from the GA website.

I would love to see you there in person, but we are also planning an exciting remote offering with speakers from a number of countries speaking as well.

The Annual Conference and Exhibition 2022 will take place from Monday 11 - Wednesday 13 April at the University of Surrey, Guildford, and online.

2022 will be the first year that the GA has held a hybrid Conference. We are going to be offering a full face to face Conference supplemented by a slimmed-down online version.  

The face to face Conference at the University of Surrey in Guildford will include a programme of over 100 lectures, workshops, teacher-to-teacher sessions, research papers and field visits with social events in the evening and the opportunity to network with other delegates and exhibitors. 

The online version will include a combination of lectures and workshops but the programme will be smaller than the face to face version with roughly half the sessions available.

The delegate fees are shown below.