John Lyon

Alongside the Presidents, this blog also features other notable figures from the GA.

One of my best professional experiences was working with John Lyon for three years at Solly Street in Sheffield when I was the GA's Secondary Curriculum Development Leader during the 2nd half of the Action Plan for Geography.

John had a long career as a teacher in the Rotherham and Sheffield area, eventually becoming a Deputy Head in Anston, a place I visited regularly when I was at school as I had friends who lived there, and used to cycle over from my home in Wickersley. 

He worked as the GA's Programme Director, which meant he had oversight of many of the GA's activity strands, with an eye on the bigger picture. I was more the 'ideas man'... some of which were good :)

John was involved in a great many GA projects, whether coordinating them, or contributing to them. He has served on the moderating team for the GA's Quality Marks for many years as well. He was involved in a BECTa funded ICT project and the Making my Place in the World project - working with young people in Sheffield. He and I presented a number of times at GA Conference, including a session with Michael Solem from the AAG. He was also involved in the early stages of the I-USE project which was Erasmus funded.

He is one of the authors of the 'Progress in Geography' textbook published by Hodder.

He has contributed to GA journals over the years, and worked to write resources for a whole range of areas of the GA's work.

John is also the host of the GA's Podcast series, which has to date interviewed around 40 people and produced an hour long-ish discussion each time with supporting resources. Hunt out GeogPod, particularly the episodes where he interviews people such as Margaret Roberts.

You can listen to them on the GA website, or on all the usual streaming services such as Spotify.

Here he is on a Worldwise Weekend with Nick Lapthorn - another former GA President. He has been involved with Worldwise and the Worldwise Challenge for some time, and this led to involvement in the International Geography Olympiad eveents - iGEO.

John is a keen cyclist and runner, and lives high up in the Peak District in a perfect place to carry out these hobbies. He also acts as quiz master on the GA Conference quizzes which are very popular.

As mentioned, John was also one of the writers who worked on this textbook, of which I have a few copies in my classroom.

John also serves on the Physical Geography SIG. This is one of the GA's SIGs or Special Interest Groups.

Other memories of, and embarrassing stories about, John very welcome as always.

Association at Work - with Alan Kinder - image Bryan Ledgard