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.