GA Presidency Month 9: May 2022

May can be a bit of an anti-climax after the GA Conference which is held in April, but it also marks the start of the final third of the Presidential term, when thoughts turn towards legacy and also transition for the incoming President as well.

I started the final third of my GA Presidency this month. The work continues though for all GA Presidents (and also the Vice and Past President)

I started the month by checking 2nd proofs of an article I had been asked to contribute to one of the GA's Journals: Teaching Geography, which began in 1975 with Patrick Bailey as the Editor. This will be published in the Summer 2022 edition.

The GA's Governance Working Group meets ahead of the GA Governing Body, to set the Agenda and also consider some strategic decisions and thinking. We decided on a date for meetings later in the month and year.

The official images from the GA Conference are generally shared by the end of April, and work goes on to write an illustrated summary of the event for the GA Magazine. These were added to a Flickr album here. See if you can spot yourself if you were there. If you missed the event completely you can purchase a set of recordings from the GA Shop.

The Geographers Gaze project moved on with web pages being built and captions added from the work I completed with Peter Fox.

I had a CPD meeting with Guy Nunnerley - the Head of Geography at Wisbech Grammar School -  regarding my own PDR (Professional Development Review) - an annual or biannual obligation for many teachers - focussing on KS2-3 transition. Thanks to Guy, who I used to work with when he started out in his career - for giving up the time to meet with me and share what he and his department are doing, and their plans for next year. It's important as teachers that we get to see what other schools are doing and I've been very fortunate to visit hundreds of schools over the years in various roles.

Open Day was held on the 7th of May at school - we welcomed visitors and parents who were thinking of joining the school. I then headed home to join the Charney Online Conference.

This was an excellent one-day event with good conversations. I used the presentation here:

Thanks for the kind words. I also learned a lot from the other presenters and have access to their presentations as well.

The following week was a D3 Multiplier Event.

The GI Pedagogy project had been presented at the EuroGeo Conference in Mytiline in Greece the weekend before but I was unable to be there. We heard that the British Council had approved an extension due to COVID preventing a lot of our work, which was good news, so thanks to them. Another ERASMUS project involving my school: Rise the Life was also able to carry out its long delayed residential mobility to Turkey as well.

The ESRI UK User Conference returned to a face-to-face format, and I had permission to make my way down there. Sophie Wilson and Brendan Conway from the GI Pedagogy team were there. I also had the chance to meet up with the ESRI Education folks, Steve Brace from the RGS, Shanique Harris (who is leading a new RGS project called Geography for All) and Francisca Rockey from the Black Geographers group.

I had articles published in three of the GA's journals - I missed out on 'Geography' this time round. Catch them here if you are a subscriber.

Add them to your membership perhaps.

There was also a meeting of the GI Pedagogy project the following week.

Other things that I did this month:

- Completed some consultancy for a VR firm who are building scenes for students to explore with additional educational content. 

- A day working at the Forum library in Norwich 

- Attending part of a meeting of the GA's Post 16 and HE Committee - one of several who support the work of the GA and give up time to meet at weekends and also complete work according to a Work Plan which is then reported to Education Group.

- Discussions with Alastair Owens: the GA Vice President, about the format of the GA's Awards and preparations of papers for Governing Body

- Working on some resources for TeachIt Geography

- Working on a forthcoming book project which I can't mention

- Consultancy with a design agency

- Worked on some materials for the BBC to accompany a film made by De'Graft Mensah, which is part of a series on Empire and Ghana (where his family is from).

COBRIG is the Council of British Geography and has been in existence for many years.

The Council seeks to include representatives of all major geographical organisations in the UK. It invites representatives from the following organisations:

British Science Association (Geography group recorder) (BSA)
Conference of Heads of Geography in British Universities
Council for Curriculum, Examinations and Assessment, Northern Ireland (CCEA)
ESTYN
Geographical Association (GA)
Office of Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills, England (OFSTED)
Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) (RGS with IBG)
Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS)
Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT)
Welsh Joint Education Committee/Cyd-bwyllgor Addysg Cymru (WJEC / CBAC)

Alan Kinder was unable to attend and asked me to stand in for him. We had several papers which were included in the agenda and I gave an update on activity largely based on the National Research Report.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license

The final week brought some more projects:

 - an article for a cartography magazine, which looks good

- some consultancy with a design agency and others

- preparing for the next Governing Body meeting in June by writing some papers

- many personal emails and DMs on social media to share resources and ideas

- discussions around GIS use in the profession

GeogPod is the GA's Podcast, which is hosted by John Lyon. There have been over 50 episodes of the podcast so far, and remarkably I hadn't been asked to do one until now.

Paula Richardson and I were interviewed about the National Fieldwork Week. This runs from the 6th to the 10th of June.

This should be out next week.

The month ended with the start of half term holiday. Just another half term to go before a much needed summer break, when I hope to progress some projects but also decompress as we approach the end of my Presidential term, and support those stepping up to the next stage: Alastair Owens and Denise Freeman.

I was also interviewed on the morning show on BBC Radio Guernsey.

The theme was the National Fieldwork Week.

You can listen again until the end of June. I'm on from 11.16-11.30

The usual Twitter stats at the end of the month. Quite a lot down on the previous month which had all the tweets relating to the GA Conference which were all amplified.

That's three quarters of my Presidential year done.