Access any blog post from this presentation

I've just posted this presentation on Slideshare to join the hundreds of others I have shared over the years. It has a brief biography of every former President of the GA and a link to their much fuller post on the blog.

There are over 500 other posts as well which share a lot of the history of the GA and other notable figures. I will add a post on the GA President for 2021-22 tomorrow...

GA Presidents 1893 2021 from GeoBlogs

Quotidian Geography

I gave much thought of course to the theme for my own Presidential conference in 2022 for some time. This is important as it leads to a particular range of lectures and workshops and invitations to particular speakers that are the choice of the President, and the overall aims of the event. 

The theme I chose is Everyday Geographies.

The public lecture and the other main events are tied to the theme. For more on the theme, check out other posts over on LivingGeography.

There will also be a chance for you to win one of 100 specially-made enamel badges for participation in a curriculum project I will launch in the first week of September.

Also watch out for the hashtags #potga21 and #everydaygeographies in use through the year here and over on Living Geography.

GA Sustainability and Citizenship SIG

Another Geographical Assocation SIG has joined Twitter. Quite a few of the groups have Twitter accounts. Check the GA Magazine's Webwatch feature to see more details of them.

Follow the account to find out more about the work of the GA's Sustainability and Citizenship SIG. Keep an eye out for an event in mid-September which will be launched soon.

2020: Dr Susan Pike

Dr Susan Pike is a Lecturer in Geography Education in the School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies at the Institute of Education in Dublin City University, in the Republic of Ireland. She has worked in this role since 2000, when she moved to Ireland from England.

School and University

Susan had a shaky start with geography. 

She remembers copying off the board in primary school in Scotland and learning off examination answers and standing up when getting questions wrong in secondary school in England. Luckily for her last year of A level, she had an inspiring teacher Mrs Fairclough, as she remembers

"Jane was amazing, she realised very quickly we had pretty poor experiences of Geography so far. She listened to our complaints, and acted upon them! She took is out on fieldwork, passing on her passion for Geography and the environment. She was so caring, she also persuaded me to apply for university, something I had never considered before. For this I remain so grateful to her." 

Susan attended Nottingham University's School of Geography from 1987. One of her lecturers was Professor John Cole. Susan had lovely memories of him: 

"As geography students we were a social lot, most of the class went out on Thursday nights to Rock City. But we were all there at 9 am on Fridays for his 'Developing World' lectures. He was so interesting, teaching us geography through story. I was very lucky to have him as my tutor in 2nd Year, through his stories and questions, he never failed to get us thinking geographically". 

Her other memorable lecturers were numerous, and included Dr Catherine Delano-Smith and Professor Louise Crewe. Over the past 20 years Susan has designed and taught on a range of modules in Geography,

Teaching

After graduating, Susan worked for Compassion in World Farming for three years, hence the idea for her GA Conference theme in 2021. She worked in all sections, from despatch to campaigns but also knew that she wanted to move on and teach. 

She gained a place on the PGCE at the University of Southampton, and her tutor was Professor Nick Foskett. She had very positive experiences at Southampton. 

"I was so fortunate on the PGCE. My tutor was Nick, who was so dedicated to his role. he really cared for us all. At Bournemouth School for Boys, we were treated with such care, as we were the first PGCE students there and at Oaklands Community School in Southampton, the same was so as they always took students." 

During this time Susan realised the importance of her subject association:

"I was always aware of the GA, having read Geography at university. But on the first day of our PGCE, Nick told us to join the GA and that the Conference would be in Southampton that year, so I joined and went the Conference. I remember being 'star-struck' by meeting so many of the people whose work I had read. And they were all so lovely!" 

Susan worked at King Richard School in Paulsgrove, Portsmouth, then back to Oaklands Community School in Southampton. All whilst completing her Masters in Geographical and Environmental Education at Southampton. She then became Head of Geography at Hayling School near Portsmouth. She fondly remembers all the roles she held as well as the students and teachers she worked for. 

"I was so fortunate to work in great schools, with such dedicated teachers. All the school I worked in were challenging in terms of the issues some students' experiences, but luckily as a geography teacher you were able to link the learning to the students' lives and engage them. Most of them eventually liked geography and many did better than they thought they would at GCSE! We also went on many trips, working out the very cheapest ways to travel, from down to the local beach or shops and all the way to EuroDisney and the Christmas Markets in Germany." 

Working in teacher education.

Susan continued to be a member of the GA, and on moving to Ireland and working in teacher education, she started writing for the GA. She first wrote about research on children's national identity in Primary Geography in 2001. She went on to become more involved in the work of primary geographers, presenting at several GA Conferences, Geography Teacher Educators' Conferences and Charney Primary Geography Conferences. 

During this time Susan completed her doctorate in education at Queen's University Belfast as well as other published research in geography education and teacher education. As can be seen from her DCU profile, she has written numerous books, papers, chapters and resources all related to geography and geography teacher education. She is also on the Committee of the Geography Society of Ireland, a member of the Geography Education Research Collective (GERECO), the editorial board of International Research in Geography and Environmental Education (IRGEE). 

Susan and the GA Presidential Role 

Over time, Susan became more involved in the work of the GA. In 2016 Susan's first book was published, 'Learning Primary Geography: Ideas and Inspirations from Classrooms', featuring theory and practice in primary geography. Over this time Susan wrote articles, many with teachers for Primary Geography. 

She received the Geographical Association Award for Excellence in 2016. 

She worked extremely hard as Secretary of the GA’s Early Years and Primary Phase Committee from 2017. She then became Junior Vice President in 2018. 

Over the past two years she has chaired the GA’s Education Group meetings for the last year in her role as GA Vice-President and President, and is currently a GA Trustee. Susan’s 2021 Presidential theme of ‘Compassionate Geographies’ grew in significance and resonance since it was first announced, as we all became increasingly aware of our own personal geographies and connections with others. The Conference, held online, was a great success. Session downloads are still available to obtain by those who attended, and can be purchased by those who didn't attend the event. Susan was delighted about how the Conference went: 

"Thanks to all the GA member and staff who got involved, the event went as well as it could! The keynote speakers, the workshops and lectures as well as the Wonder Room were all wonderful." 

The online format of the conference allowed those who could not normally attend the event to come along. As Susan says:

"My original reasons for wanting to become President were to encourage more people to get involved in the Association, as the restrictions this year has actually helped this process. I think people are more likely to say they can volunteer for the GA, as it's been easier to meet up online. However, I also know folk are really looking forward to seeing each other for real! There's also more to do to make the GA more diverse and inclusive, but we are all working on that as you can see in each issue of GA News. It's been a strange year to be GA President, but I've enjoyed every moment of it. It has been a privilege everyday. Luckily I was in the presidential cycle for the two years before, working with Education Group and Governing Body before our movements were restricted. However, there are many GA members I've only really got to know online, many of whom have become more involved in the Association. All of them are so dedicated to the Association and promoting and developing geography in their settings. So, like many of us, I am really looking forward to Conference in 2022, for many missed cups of coffee and chats, as well as the quiz, BeerMeet and other events in Guildford!" 

As she steps down from being GA President, she is looking forward to continuing her work for the GA, as a member of Governing Body and working on various projects for the Association. Most of all she is looking forward to linking up her students with schools, principals, teachers and children again, something that has been impossible recently. 

Images copyright: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association - the next images were provided by Susan Pike.

Susan with teachers involved in Learning Primary Geography, and Dr Harold Hislop, Chief Inspector of Schools in Ireland in 2016

Some of Susan's Geography Specialism students at the GA Conference in 2017

Some of Susan's BEd2 students 2011, out of fieldwork with Barnaby Bear

Rethinking risk by making fire with BEd3 students at DCU, 2018

References

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=_PFcqb8AAAAJ&hl=en - Google Scholar

Geography in the Long Vacation

An excellent blog post from the Bodleian Libraries account is helpful for providing some further information on the summer schools that were organised by Frances and A J Herbertson in the early days of the Oxford University geography department.

They were particularly influential and drew on the expertise of other geography educators as well as helping the next generation of geography educators with their innovative ideas. As the blog says:

The summer vacation courses were designed chiefly for schoolteachers. Held to coincide with the school holidays, they were open to anyone. Those attending spent a couple of weeks in Oxford during August for a special course of lectures and practical work in geography. The courses included field trips (for surveying and map drawing) as well as excursions to local places of geographical interest.

IGU - CGE

The IGU (International Geographical Union) will have their 100th conference next year in Paris.

This year's IGU-CGE conference was held last week in Prague.

The keynote speakers and several of the other sessions involved people who I have been privileged to work with over the years on ERASMUS+ funded projects including Michael Solem and the third phase of GeoCapabilities is well represented too.

On the IGU site, there is history of the IGU, which was originally co-written by Norman Graves, former GA President and added to by other people. (Downloadable as PDF or Word document)

He talks about the original seminars organised with the UN, which included Neville Scarfe from the UCL IoE.

In 1950, UNESCO organized their first seminar on the teaching of geography in Montreal. This seminar was chaired by Neville Scarfe (1908-1985), who at that time was Head of the Geography Department at the University of London Institute of Education. The result of this seminar was UNESCO’s A Handbook of Suggestions on the Teaching of Geography (Unesco, 1951) mainly drafted by Neville Scarfe.

Following the book, the next stages of the development drew in L Dudley Stamp. This followed the early UK Land User Survey which has appeared on the blog before.

Neville Scarfe reported his association with L. Dudley Stamp, a British geographer at the London School of Economics. Scarfe, a British geography teacher, became senior lecturer at the London Institute of Education in 1935. He was a professional acquaintance of Stamp’s since the London geographers were, in Scarfe’s words, a friendly and sociable group. Both were members of the Royal Geographical Society, which was a further reason for contact. It is likely that Stamp and Scarfe collaborated during the 1930s and 1940s when Stamp organized the school children of the United Kingdom to map the land use near their schools. Scarfe had a network of many geography teachers and students who participated in the mapping. Stamp and Scarfe both participated in the first post war IGU conference in Lisbon, Portugal in 1949, where geographical education and international cooperation were topics being addressed with considerable interest. It was during the Lisbon Congress that the IGU appointed a Committee on the Teaching of Geography under the chairmanship of Neville Scarfe.

The history also talks about the publication of the 1965 UNESCO New Source Book for Geography Teaching.

This can be borrowed from the Internet Archive website.

It features several chapters by Norman Graves on the teaching of geography which make interesting reading, and also a chapter by Tom W Brown who was a teacher at the King's School, Gloucester on the organisation of the geography classroom.

Presidential Thought for the Day

"Vote for the man who promises less. He will be the one that least disappoints you."

William Mitchell Ramsay

GA President 1918

105 Presidents... and counting...

Coming shortly is a Presentation which can be used by anyone, and will help you with a short biography and image of each GA President and a direct link to their entry on the blog.

SPC - 2013

An image I found earlier from an SPC meeting in 2013 - at the October Gallery in London.

Some familiar faces there to many readers perhaps. Happy to receive more images taken at Phase committee and Special Interest Group meetings.

Picture by Victoria Ellis.

2008 - Working for the GA

It was in September 2008 that I started work for the Geographical Association. I worked there for three years, and it was the best time of my professional life and every day was CPD as I travelled across the UK and Europe, learning, writing, teaching and pushing forward the idea of what school geography could be.

I worked with many wonderful geographers, and had the chance to visit hundreds of schools and work with thousands of teachers as we worked to deliver the projects funded by the Action Plan for Geography and meet the KPI targets.

See the recent post on John Lyon for more on the time we worked together at Solly Street.

I kept notebooks all the way through that period of three years, to jot down everything I was doing, and also keep agendas of meetings etc.

Here they are:

When my job was made redundant I was bereft and thanks to many people who offered me some help in the next few years. I thanked them here.

Particular thanks as always to Claire Kyndt for changing that around 8 years ago.

E C Marchant from 1972

"The eminent French geographer, Henri Baulig, insisted that there was nothing in the realm of the natural sciences which gave a more fundamental training of the mind than "placing the student in front of a landscape, or a map or photograph, and inviting him, drawing also on his previous knowledge, to make certain individual deductions and to be prepared to defend his conclusions. He may not get very far: certain aspects of the problem may escape him : but his conclusions will be none the less valuable; for they will be based on his own observations, supported by previous knowledge, and arrived at through the chain of argument by which he links up the one with the other."

Source: MARCHANT, E. C. “Geography for Careers. REPORT OF THE FINDINGS OF A WORKING PARTY OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION AND ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY.” Geography, vol. 57, no. 4, 1972, pp. 327–332. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40567916. 

10 000 page views

I started this blog in April 2019 (although I started writing it before then) when it was announced that I would be the GA President in 2021-2.

I have written a biography of every former GA President. 

The current GA President, Dr. Susan Pike is still to come, and I will also add an entry for myself in due course. There's also been coverage of a whole range of additional people, events, news, documents, images and details on the development of the GA since the original meeting in 1893. 

There are also several further documents and developments to come, particularly as I get longer to delve into the GA archives.

So far, there have been almost 650 blog posts. I have just passed 10 000 page views.

Thanks to those who have come along to read the posts. There's plenty to catch up on if you have not visited before. Try the search box in the top left to find out particular Presidents.

Spring Conference Programmes

A few from the archives at Solly Street.

Spring Conferences were a theme for some decades. Some well known names and former Presidents involved in these particular events. More detail to come as time permits once I visit Solly Street again.

The last one was held in the year I was born. Note the address of the GA at the time: at the Park Branch Library on Duke Street.

Also note Marguerita Oughton, who has been mentioned on the blog.

Fred Martin

Along with the Presidents, this blog has featured some of the many volunteers and activists who have supported the Association over the years.

Fred Martin was the PGCE tutor at Bath Spa University for many years, and has been involved with the GA for decades in various roles, with a long stint serving on the Education Group of the GA. 

He is a prolific author who has written many books, some of which were first published over twenty years ago, and remain available. They include the book here, published by the GA.

Fred was on the sub-group that was involved with the GeoVisions project, which led to many other GA projects over the years, and has appeared on this blog previously, along with further information about Di Swift.

This led to him writing the Cape Farewell resource, which I used when teaching the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography, and which has also been featured in a previous blogpost.

Fred served on the Secondary Phase Committee for many years, including the period when I was also on the committee.

I presented sessions with Fred several times at GA Conference including 2005 - the first time I presented at the GA conference in a session on Gifted and Talented Geographers. I was a bit nervous.

We also worked on a session exploring how to 'Transform Tired Topics' along with Tom Biebrach. It originally had a diffferent title...

In 2007, we also jointly presented on Future Fieldwork: a double workshop on GIS for Beginners which included some cutting edge GIS work (for the time) and also included future Chief Executive Alan Kinder.

Fred worked with a number of others, including Gary Dawson, who also served on the Secondary Committee to write 3 books of starters for Badger Publishing. You may remember them. I have them on the bookshelf in my classroom. 

Fred is now on the editorial board of 'Teaching Geography' and recently set me a challenge of writing an article about the teaching of GIS and traditional map skills.

Fred was also kind enough to provide a message to delegates at the first TeachmeetGeographyIcons when I did a keynote session.

Even in the Summer 2021 issue, Fred has an article, where he explores the progress made in pedagogy over the years through 'Teaching Geography' articles.

Image: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

References

Martin, Fred, and Diane Swift. “What Can CD-ROMs Do for Us?” Teaching Geography, vol. 21, no. 1, 1996, pp. 20–23. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23753746. Accessed 26 June 2021.

Geographical Pictures

Molly Long's work was linked to children's conception of geography, and pedagogy, around initial teacher education at the IoE. She was GA President in 1970.

She wrote several papers on the theme of exploring how young children conceptualise places, and how they respond to images. I am part of a group of people including former GA President Peter Fox who are working on a project called the Geographers Gaze.

As part of that work we have been exploring how to make better use of the GA's Lantern Slide collection.

See previous posts on magic lantern slides.

References

Alan Kinder - Chief Executive

Alan Kinder was appointed as the Chief Executive of the GA in 2012, taking office in September of that year. I'd known Alan since 2005 ish when we first started working on the books which were the original editions in the KS3 Teacher Toolkit - others have been added to the series since.

Alan also served on, and was co-chair of Secondary Phase Committee for a while when I also served on the committee.

Here's the announcement of Alan's appointment as David Lambert's replacement as Chief Executive on the GA website back in 2012, thanks to the Wayback Machine.

Alan had a varied career before becoming the Chief Executive, involving himself in many aspects of the subject, and the different groups the GA engages with.

There is a brief biography on the GA website.

Alan has had a wide variety of roles within geographical education: geography teacher, school and curriculum leader, field studies officer, local authority adviser, PGCE tutor and educational consultant. 

His work has taken him from the south coast of England to South Yorkshire and from continental Europe to South-East Asia, giving him the opportunity to work with hundreds of schools from across the UK and further afield. 

Alan has written and contributed to a large body of professional and curriculum materials: books, CPD courses, newspaper and journal articles and website materials on behalf of organisations including the Geographical Association, Oxford University Press, Routledge, the Prince’s Teaching Institute, Times Educational Supplement, RGS-IBG and many others. He is, with John Widdowson, the series co-editor of the GA's award-winning Key Stage 3 Geography Teacher's Toolkit.

Alan has played a key role in advising government on curriculum matters over many years and has had a significant influence on the content and structure of the national curriculum for geography. He was a member of the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) panel which advised on English national curriculum reforms in 2008 and reformed A levels that same year. 

Alan was also a national advisor for the implementation of the 2008 Key Stage 3 curriculum in schools. In 2012 he joined the Department for Education’s (DfE’s) subject expert group to advise the Government on the 2014 National Curriculum and GCSE subject criteria for geography from 2016; he was a member of the Geography Expert Subject Advisory Group (GESAG) for the implementation of the 2014 national curriculum and a member of the A Level Content Advisory Board (ALCAB) geography panel, responsible for advising the DfE on A level geography content criteria from 2016. 

Alan has advised the QCDA on national assessment initiatives and Ofqual, the qualification regulator, on specification regulation.

He currently sits on the Council for British Geography (COBRIG), is a Director of the Council for Subject Associations (CfSA), a virtual editorial board member and regular contributor to the SecEd educational newspaper and a corresponding member of the International Geographical Union Commission on Geographical Education (IGU-CGE) UK sub-committee. 

In 2017 he joined the University Of Sheffield Department of Geography’s advisory board.

As a long-standing member of the Geographical Association, Alan served on the GA's Secondary Phase Committee between 1998 and 2008 (Co-Chair 2005-8), chaired its Education Committee from 2009-12 and served as a member of the GA Governing Body from 2009-12. 

Alan's role is tremendously varied and challenging and I have hugely valued his support for my own Presidential journey, and his thoughtful and measured approach to all meetings. The final year has been particularly demanding on Alan and all the staff at GA HQ. Alan will hopefully not mind me mentioning that he has a few more grey hairs in his beard... as do I, but have come through it remarkably well and we are in a good place going forward.

Alan has contributed numerous articles to GA publications over the years, as well as chapters in the Secondary Handbook. He co-writes a Policy Matters column in the GA magazine each issue, along with the President.

I have learned a great deal working with Alan during my time as Junior Vice and Vice President, and look forward to working with him and the team at Solly Street over the next two years.

Image: Bryan Ledgard - Alan K with John Lyon at the Association at Work day.

Dr. Vanessa Lawrence - Honorary Vice President

For a period, the GA had several Honorary Vice Presidents, and they have also been featuring on the blog.
Vanessa Lawrence was formerly an Honorary Vice President of the GA. I met Vanessa several times, including at the SAGT Conference, where she was speaking in a year when I was also presenting.

She also presented me with my Ordnance Survey Award at the RGS-IBG back in 2008.

She is a board member of the Turing Institute, from which the following biography is taken:

Dr Vanessa Lawrence CB works internationally as a senior advisor to governments, inter-governmental organisations including the World Bank and large private sector organisations. She is a Director of Location International Ltd which provides strategic advice and full operational capacity globally, to the public and private sectors, as to how to gain from improving their own use of location information to enhance their decision-making and to meet the ever-changing needs of their customers and stakeholders.

In addition, Vanessa is a Non-Executive Director of the Satellite Applications Catapult, the innovation centre for satellite use in the United Kingdom, on the advisory boards of Seraphim Space LLP, the Space venture capital fund backed by the British Business Bank, the Spatial Finance Initiative, the Urban Big Data Centre and also she is the Honorary Colonel of 135 Geographic Squadron Royal Engineers.Vanessa is a Trustee of the Royal Geographical Society, an Adjunct Professor at the University of Southampton and a Patron of MapAction, the UK-based international charity which specialises in supplying geographical information for humanitarian relief operations.

From 2000-2014, she was the Director General and CEO Ordnance Survey, Britain’s National Mapping Authority and the advisor to the British Government for issues involving mapping, surveying and geographic information. She is the longest-serving Director General and CEO of Ordnance Survey since 1875.

From 2011-2015, Vanessa was a founding co-chair of the United Nations Committee of Experts on Global Geospatial Information Management (UN-GGIM).

In January 2008, Vanessa was appointed as a Companion of The Most Honourable Order of the Bath (CB) in the Queen’s New Year Honours List.

Image above was taken back in June 2008 at the RGS-IBG

Roger Jeans, then Education Manager, Ordnance Survey - I remember his retirement 'do' at conference.
Louise Ellis, fellow Ordnance Survey award recipient 2008
Dr. Vanessa Lawrence, then Director General and Chief Executive of Ordnance Survey (and also Honorary Vice President of the GA)
Me....

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanessa_Lawrence

https://www.turing.ac.uk/people/board-trustees/vanessa-lawrence

Quote of the Day

GA President 1934: Rt Hon. James Scorgie Meston

“THE GEOGRAPHY OF AN INDIAN VILLAGE. ADDRESS TO THE GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION, By the Rt. Hon. BARON MESTON OF AGRA AND DUNOTTAR President, 1934-35.” Geography, vol. 20, no. 1, 1935, pp. 1–12. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40559216.

1897 - 'Science' piece

I've been updating a few posts on the blog as we get closer to the posting of Susan Pike's biography shortly, which means there is only one more President to add this year: on the 1st of September.

I came across this piece:

CURRENT NOTES ON ANTHROPOLOGY
By D. G. BRINTON
Science 29 Jan 1897:
Vol. 5, Issue 109, pp. 178-179
DOI: 10.1126/science.5.109.178

References

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/5/109/178 - worth taking a look at the whole piece as the author was not overly impressed.

GA Conference 1980

From the GA Archive at Solly Street.

The 1980 Conference programme, when John Allan Patmore of the University of Hull was GA President.

Some excellent sessions were included here. I would like to have seen W.G. Hoskins talking about the English landscape, and also the Balls Brothers wine reception on the Strand to mingle with the speakers.

Any memories from those who were there welcome.