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.

Cath White RIP

I was very sad to hear of the passing of Catherine White today.

It's with great sadness that I write to inform #edutwitter of the passing of Cath White, former Branch Chair @The_GA geographer extraordinare @NorthumbriaUni & superwoman! Her enthusiasm and knowledge are legendary. She is & will continue to be very much missed @cathwhite21 rip pic.twitter.com/XlXhC20Atm

— @GA Tyne & Wear (@ga_tyne) September 18, 2021

Cath was very much involved in the GA's Tyne and Wear branch, being its Chair for many years.

She was involved in Geography education at the University of Northumbria. She was an 
Senior Lecturer in Geography at University of Northumbria until recently having held other positions in the University over the years. She was closely linked with Steve Rawlinson in her work, particularly on developing approaches to fieldwork.

She presented a number of times at GA Conference, including sessions on the use of 8-way thinking for fieldwork (a favourite of mine too) and podcasting. 
I was pleased to be able to support the branch by visiting a number of times, and Cath was always a very welcoming host and involved me in a number of activities while I was there. 

She did a great deal to support geographers, particularly within the NE, and also supported the work of the RGS.

Cath was awarded an Outstanding Service Certificate at the GA Conference earlier this year.

The Society is very sad to learn of the passing of Catherine White FRGS, Visiting Scholar @NUGeog @NorthumbriaUni Geography dept. and this year's recipient of the Taylor & Francis Award. She inspired the next generation of geographers and teachers. https://t.co/PwgKBBpIVf pic.twitter.com/Zvrgkdq74n

— Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) (@RGS_IBG) September 21, 2021

Condolences to Cath's family, friends and colleagues.

References

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Catherine-White-9 

Rawlinson, Steve, White, Catherine and Kotter, Richard (2009) Living Geography: 8 ways fieldwork - evolution & evalutation. In: Geographical Association Annual Conference, 11-14 April 2009, Manchester, UK. 

https://openlibrary.org/works/OL12646179W/The_geography_of_markets

The Geography & Education Research Group of the Royal Geographical Society with the IBG (formerly the Higher Education Research Group - HERG) also involved Cath in her work.

You can see Cath presenting her ideas on transitions at the event on the page here.

You can also see a range of the guest lectures that were offered for the GA Tyne and Wear Branch here on their YouTube channel.

2021: Alan Parkinson (that's me...)

Updated June 2024

The final entry for the blog - at least for a while - is a post about me. 

I'm Head of Geography at King's Ely Prep, and also an author and consultant geographer. I'm a Chartered Geographer and Fellow of the RGS and RSGS.

For what I get up to, please visit, and subscribe to my main blog, which is called Living Geography, and follow the development of my Quotidian Geographies project during 2021.

I will also add other blog posts here from time to time through the following year, before the next President as I have the chance to go into the archives.

You can also follow the #POTGA21 hashtag during this year as well as #everydaygeographies.

I was born in the Listerdale Maternity Hospital, to the East of Rotherham in late December 1963. I lived in the village of Wickersley and went to Northfield Lane Infants and then Junior School before going on to Wickersley Comprehensive School. This was formerly Wickersley High School (many of our folders still had the old name) and also had ROSLA extensions after the raising of the school leaving age, and a classic 1970s construction. My journey to school involved walking over the blue bridge here, with distant views of the Peak District and Sheffield.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Miss Moon was my teacher in Year 8, then I had John Neale and Steve Hanstock amongst others. I still have my exercise books from that time. I moved to a house on the main Bawtry Road shown above during my secondary days. I got an 'A' in my 'O' level Geography, and stayed on to do 'A' levels at the school.

I was really interested in computers too, and our science teacher Doc Humphries had an Apple II computer in a locked-up trolley at the back of his lab. I used to stay behind one or two evenings a week after school and teach myself to programme the machine, and used magazines and books to find out more about how it worked. I took 'O' level Computer Science and ended up teaching GCSE and A level Computer Science as well as Geography for a while.

Taking Computer Science also meant that we would travel on an old double decker bus operated by Powell's coaches, and head for Dinnington College to actually access some computers - RM machines with green graphics on black screens, and machine coded. 

I did quite well in my 'A' levels, and the big success was Geography for me. My teacher was Steve Hanstock who was personable and a good teacher.

John Neale was another of my teachers, who it turned out worked with John Lyon, who later became a colleague at the GA.

Our notes were often banda duplicated, and had lots of information and diagrams and spaces to fill at GCSE, but as we got more into geography, we had more lecture-style lessons.
When I opened my 'A' level results in August 1982, I had the grades to head for either Lancaster University or Huddersfield Polytechnic, but chose the course which would be more practical and fieldwork based, and also physical geography based as that was my interest back then. I also had plans to return home more than once or twice a year and Huddersfield wasn't too far away from Rotherham.
As mentioned elsewhere on this blog, in entries describing Huddersfield and the connections with other GA members, it is clear that this was a good proving ground for some young lecturers including Tim Burt and David Butcher amongst others.
A few images of me emerged on a local Facebook page, and also another dedicated to those who 'survived Huddersfield Polytechnic'.

Image: Sally Stow. I'm the one in the yellow and black hat. I haven't changed a bit.

I graduated with a II, i and was not sure what to do with myself.

Teaching was an option as my mother was a lecturer at the time at Dinnington College of Further Education. I took a Computer Science 'A' level at Rotherham College of Arts and Technology, which involved learning other computer languages and gave me the time to read, and play a lot of golf. 

I went for several interviews for PGCE courses, and was eventually accepted at the University of Hull by Vincent Tidswell, who was in his final year as PGCE tutor. He appears on this blog of course as I later found out he was involved with the GA and wrote a number of influential books.

After finishing the course, I eventually found work. The first school I actually earned money from teaching in was Kimberworth Park in Rotherham - now demolished and famous for being the school where former England goalkeeper David Seaman. Ironically, I now teach at the school where Nick Pope - an England goalkeeper in the last year - was taught.

Here's the 'fun' biography I put on GeographyPages in 2006. It's a little out of date now of course, but includes some interesting snippets. Geography Pages was my website I started creating in 2001, and which became one of the most popular websites of the time (as one of the few websites of the time) gaining millions of page views a year (and costing me a lot of money to maintain)

Born on a sheer mountain side in South Yorkshire in the early 1960's during a blizzard, Mister P was educated at the local 'comp' and enjoyed moderate success (9 'O' & 5 'A' levels) before moving on to Huddersfield Polytechnic (when polys were polys) and spent the next 3 years pushing the Atterberg limits, enjoying the mid-1980's price of beer, checking tensiometer readings at Bicknoller, criss-crossing the Pennines in a land rover with a radioactive soil moisture probe.

He has taught at various schools in Derbyshire (the good old Amber valley), East and South Yorkshire, and at  King Edward VII School: a specialist Sports College, in King's Lynn, Norfolk where he is Head of Geography, and edits the school newsletter, amongst other things. In his time at the school he has overseen the introduction of the Geography National Curriculum, run the Duke of Edinburgh's Award group, been Activities Coordinator, Deputy Head of House, and for a year was acting Examinations Officer. 

A founder member of the sadly-missed Boiled Onions Climbing Club, he enjoys foreign and UK travel, hill-walking when he gets the chance, landscape photography, obscure travel literature, Scandinavian Jazz, open fires, a good tight end in a game of bowls, beachcombing on the North Norfolk coast and fine malt whiskies. The Old Hunstanton side he plays for won the Countryside League Knockout cup in 2005.

He completed a DfES Best Practice research scholarship on the use of ICT, particularly the Internet in improving the quality of teaching in Geography (2002) which is published online and has been referred to by other academic researchers, and also completed an Online course on Climate Change run by the University of East Anglia. He is an ICT consultant to 'silver surfers' in the North Norfolk area. He is also involved in various web-based interests, including 'Evaluate' (his software evaluations are featured on the website and have been published in 'The Guardian' as have contributions to 'Brainstrust')

In November 2003 he was awarded a Royal Geographical Society Innovative Geography Teaching Grant to develop the GEO BLOGS project. Blogs have come on substantially since 2003 and are now almost so mainstream that they are commonplace, but it was good to get in there at the start.

In May 2004 he was invited to join the Geographical Association's Secondary Education Committee (now Secondary Phase Committee). He had an article published in the October 2004 issue of 'Teaching Geography', and was an E:port representative of the DfES/Evaluate/Schoolzone at DfES ICT in Geography roadshow and BETT 2005 and 2006. He has also been a contributing author to GeoProjects  (http://www.geoprojects.co.uk) and has also done consultancy and writing work for Hodder and Pearson and 3 or 4 other publishers. He was Editorial consultant on the new Longman School Atlas, which was published in April 2006, and has also contributed to ideas and materials for the new BBC Digital Curriculum.

He has delivered ICT workshops at numerous Norfolk Geography conferences, and network meetings, and has also presented at the GA Conference, and the SAGT Conference in 2005, and will be once again in 2006. In August 2005, he became a Teacher Consultant for the Geographical Association, and is currently doing 'various consultancy-type-things...'

In October 2005 he was awarded a second Royal Geographical Society Innovative Geography Teaching Grant to develop the EARTH: A Users' Guide project. He'd appreciate it if you got involved.

2006 contributions to the milieu include: contributions to Brainstrust / Evaluate publication, Longman School Atlas published, article published in Pilot News, guest edited WebWatch section of GA News for May 2006 and invited to join the editorial committee of GA Magazine, teacher notes and curriculum maps produced for the RGS-IBG Discovering Antarctica website (launched June 2006), best of the web feature for Teachers TV (coming in September), contributions to working groups in Norfolk on SEN and Pilot GCSE. He is also involved in further Pilot GCSE developments to be announced shortly as part of the Action Plan for Geography. In 2006 he was awarded a 'Norfolk Geogers' award for contributions to Norfolk Geography. 

Image: showing the KES fleeces we used to wear for a while... taken around 2006.

In early 2008, I saw an ad for a post at the Geographical Association, and put in a speculative application for what was going to be my 'perfect' job, despite having a bit of 'imposter syndrome' about being up to a national role.

This was a good year, as I was also awarded the Ordnance Survey Award for Excellence in Secondary Geography Teaching by the RGS-IBG. Here I am prior to all that, and prior to the interview, presenting at the GA Conference as part of the authoring team for the new KS3 toolkit series.

In 2010, we published the first of the Mission:Explore books, written by the Geography Collective, which started with a conversation between Daniel Raven Ellison and myself. I am very proud of the work we completed together, with other members of the Geography Collective, and latterly with Helen Leigh and Tom Morgan-Jones.

Here's the motherlode: the 500+ missions that we wrote as a team, and then asked young people to select so that Tom Morgan Jones could do the inking.

Chatting to Anne Robertson of EDINA, with whom I've worked for quite a few years now.

In 2011, my job was sadly made redundant as a result of financial fallout from the end of the Action Plan for Geography.

I put out an appeal for help.

This led to two years of freelance work, with plenty of ERASMUS thrown in.

In 2013 I received a nice email from Mike Robinson, the Chief Executive of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, explaining that I had been awarded the RSGS's Joy Tivy Education Medal and Honorary Fellowship - a great honour.

I also received an email from Claire Kyndt of King's Ely. This resulted in me returning to the classroom for a second stint, where I remain to the present day.

In 2017, I got an email suggesting that I might make a good President, and asking whether I would put myself forward. I duly did, and the rest is... geography.

My Presidential theme is 'Everyday Geographies' or 'Quotidian Geographies'.

There are a great many people I haven't mentioned here who I owe a great debt too... these will be mentioned in future posts in the year ahead, and also in my Presidential lecture.

References

I have written, co-written or contributed to over 30 books, including KS3, GCSE, Fieldwork and A level textbooks, children's books, adventure books and eBooks.

Charney 20th Anniversary book, edited by Simon Catling - has a chapter called 'You can take the boy out of Yorkshire' which included a sort of autobiography as well - I think on hindsight that's one of the better shorter things that I've written.

Why not buy at least one copy of my book 'Why Study Geography'? - it's excellent.

Full biography on my About.me page.

Updates

I'm always creating and sharing resources.

Currently working on the Oak National Primary project as a writer and reviewer through into 2025...

Updated June 2024

On the 3rd of June, I was elected as the Vice President: Education of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) for the next 4 years.

I am proud to be continuing the tradition of GA Presidents being associated with the RGS-IBG in many different ways, going back to Freshfield. I am looking forward to supporting the work of the RGS-IBG in supporting geography educators.