GA International Geography Network (GA IGN) - get involved

The GA IGN has been launched.

The GA International Geography Network is currently developing a network of regional hub coordinators, with colleagues already involved across South America, North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Our aim is to create locally relevant professional networks while remaining connected as part of a wider international geography community.

The GA IGN seeks to:

• provide an online space for sharing ideas, resources and best practice
• organise at least one online TeachMeet-style event each year
• facilitate at least one regional, face-to-face meetup each year
• encourage collaboration and professional dialogue between geography educators working in international settings
• support teachers and departments in developing high-quality geography education within their schools
• Improve representation of international geography teachers at the GA Annual Conference.

Here are the existing regional hub co-ordinators, but if you want to get involved, contact Matt Podbury.

Follow the link at the top of the post.

Update - 18th September 2026

Matt posted today that the response has been excellent...

Still time for you to get involved in this rapidly growing international network.

TES piece on GCSE Natural History

This TES piece includes some elements of the responses to the  consultation on the proposed subject content of the new GCSE Natural History from the RGS and the GA.

Steve Brace of the GA is quoted in the piece on some of the elements of the GA's response to the consultation.

These include concerns over the shortage of teachers who might teach the new specification, and the fieldwork elements of the course. The fieldwork may be difficult for some schools due to their location, but may also adversely affect the habitats that students are being asked to investigate.

Another award for Coastcraft

Coastcraft has won another award.

I worked on behalf of the GA to produce the Education materials for the project.

The Geography in Government (GiG) Awards are annual awards organised by the Government Geography Profession, recognisng outstanding applications of geographic knowledge and skills in government policy and practice.

The CoastCraft educational game was shortlisted for in the Communications category, which recognises government teams, individuals or products who effectively use geographic knowledge and skills to improve public communication. This includes creating clear, engaging and informative materials that help policymakers, stakeholders, and the public understand complex geographic data and its real-world impact.

The project is overjoyed that the CoastCraft game won in this category. It is a reflection of the value of educational gaming in improving coastal literacy and helping game users understand the challenges associated with adaptation pathways.’

This follows the BETT Award the project won in January of this year.

The GA's new Strategy 2026-2031

Every five years the Geographical Association releases a new Strategy.

I was involved in the creation of the previous strategy during my time as GA Vice President and President. It involves the Governing Body.

More than ever, young people need to be geographically literate in order to respond positively to a world of changing challenges and opportunities.

Geography helps young people better understand their world and how to successfully live within it.

The Geographical Association’s (GA) strategy for 2026–31 responds to these challenges. We will focus on three priorities:

• Advocating for the value of geography
• Supporting teachers
• Supporting the next generation of geographers

Read the full document from the link on this page.

There is a new Vision and Purpose.

PTI Geography Symposium - July 2026

News of an exciting joint event that's being organised jointly between the Prince's Teaching Institute, the RGS and the GA.

It's called the PTI Geography Symposium.

It will take place at the RGS on the 9th and 10th of July 2026.

The event's co-chair, the ebullient John Wilkinson - here he is introducing the event in his inimitable style.

It's great to see that my GA Presidential theme of "Everyday Geographies" is front and centre here.

More details:

Our first-ever Geography Symposium is designed to empower and inspire teachers to be advocates for their subject inside and outside of the classroom for a curriculum that is challenging, innovative and enriching for all learners.

Through academic talks, workshops and sharing of best practice, the Symposium will celebrate Geography, enrich and develop your knowledge and love of the subject, and motivate you to consider how to inspire your leaners through engagement, enjoyment and empowerment. 

In celebrating Geography's interdisciplinarity, this event captures how Geography's cross-curricular core can ignite learners’ enthusiasm across a diverse cross-section of subjects at schools and colleges. This Symposium will capture, cultivate and celebrate the zeitgeist.

Themes:

• Everyday Geographies
• Supra-curricular concept capture
• Fieldwork

Confirmed guest speakers include:

• Dr Olivia Taylor
• Professor Iain Stewart MBE
• Dr Jonathan Higham

Many more speakers and details to be announced...

Central London accommodation, meals (including a formal dinner on Thursday 9th July) and course materials are included in the course fee.

All details are here.

£100 discount for RGS members, so it's worth becoming a member just for that... and gain all the other benefits of membership.

'Teaching Geography' consultation

The Teaching Geography editorial board want to hear from you!

Please help them by completing this short survey.
This is your chance to tell them what you like and dislike about the current journal, what you would like to see articles about and where they might go next with the journal.

Thank you for your support!

Link to survey here.

Free spiralised fieldwork resources from the GA

There is always a need for fieldwork resources and ideas.

The GA and FSC have teamed up to produce some and share them freely.

The GA fieldwork survey told us that:

• teachers want new ideas for carrying out fieldwork within their school grounds and local area
• they want to embed these ideas within their current curricula
• they want resources that non-specialists can pick up and deliver
• they want resources that will build progression and don’t just repeat the same techniques but in a different context

The sets of spiralised fieldwork resources were created to support teachers by creating a starting point for fieldwork that can be done in the school grounds and local area. They can be embedded in schemes of work, but also can provide suggestions for activities during transition days or simply when the sun is shining and you want to get outside!

There are four sets to get you started; two themes based on water and trees and woodlands and two techniques, Environmental Quality Assessment and questioning techniques. However, we will be adding more over the coming months.

Jon Cannell, GA Primary Curriculum Lead said:

‘The GA and FSC are extremely excited to release a brand-new collection of FREE resources to support the integration and progression of fieldwork through the geography curriculum. Each set of resources provides easy to use activities connected to key themes from across the geography curriculum as well as introducing geographical ways of thinking and understanding.’

Elected Trustee roles - deadline 9th May

When I was going through the GA Presidential cycle I served as a Trustee for 4 years. Prior to that I had spent fourteen years serving on the Secondary Phase Committee.

Both of these are options if you want to get more involved in the running of the Association.

The Geographical Association has a chance for you to get involved as a GA Trustee - an elected trustee.

The current Governing Body is here.

The deadline is in early May.

RGS / GA Festival of Geography

Do you like festivals? Course you do...

Like geography? Of course - love it!

How about a Festival of Geography! Yes please!

The Festival of Geography brings together colleagues from the Royal Geographical Society and Geographical Association (GA) for a joint celebration of geographical knowledge and understanding.

This special event is an opportunity for teachers at all stages to come together and share their passion for geography. Over a full day, attend sessions on creative and practical ideas for the classroom and get subject updates from experts in the field.

The day is bookended with sessions from the GA and RGS-IBG on the future of geography teaching and its value as a subject for students of all ages.

The festival consists of a full day of talks and workshops held live at the RGS-IBG in London on 16 June 2025.

Programme

• 10.00 - Welcome
• 10.15 - Geography: the Big Picture (Steve Brace, GA Chief Executive)
• 10.45 - Keynote lecture: Mark Maslin (University College London)
• 11.30 - Tea and coffee
• 11.45 - Creative curriculum ideas (Fiona Sheriff)
• 12.45 - Lunch
• 13.30 - Practical fieldwork ideas (Chloë Searl)
• 14.30 - Tea and coffee
• 14.45 - Subject knowledge sessions (Anjana Khatwa and guest)
• 15.45 - Choose Geography: embedding careers education into your teaching (Alan Parkinson, VP Education Royal Geographical Society)
• 16.15 - Close

Full details and a booking link can be found on this link.

I hope to see many of you down at the 'Home of Geography' for this special event...

It's really good to have a joint event again. 

I was part of the Action Plan for Geography team - at a time when we used to work more closely together. 

An overview of recent consultations

Part of the GA's work is to advocate for geography with Government. The forthcoming Curriculum Review is one such occasion.

This is an overview from the 400+ responses that the GA received. Thanks to all those who took the time to get in touch.

You can read more here.

The RGS is holding its own consultation currently.

Feel free to join in with this one too please.

1921: Halford Mackinder

I've been doing some reading to prepare for some work in my new role as VP: Education of the Royal Geographical Society.

I came across a speech by Halford MacKinder, delivered in the famous Map Room in 1921.

I was intrigued at the description of the GA as 'the dutiful daughter' of the RGS, asking for 'maternal help'.

This came at a time when the discipline was strong in universities, but not so much in schools.

This led to a report by John Scott Keltie.

I was interested that MacKinder was caned at school for drawing maps.... see below...

"About this time a step had been taken the significance of which was not at first recognized. Mr. Dickinson of Rugby had been using lantern slides in his classroom, and wanted to organize a system of exchanging slides between school and school. 

The Royal Geographical Society referred him to me, and at my invitation the first meeting of the Geographical Association was held at Christ Church, Oxford. Herbertson soon became Secretary of the Association, which under his auspices flourished, and began to publish a journal, the Geographical Teacher."

Source: Mackinder, Halford. “Geography as a Pivotal Subject in Education.” The Geographical Journal, vol. 57, no. 5, 1921, pp. 376–84. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1780845. Accessed 11 July 2024.

Discount for GA members on GIS courses run by the RGS

A new GA member benefit. Another example of some closer working between the GA and the RGS.

There is now an opportunity for GA members to get a discount on GIS courses which are run by the Royal Geographical Society / ESRI UK.

If you ask many teachers what they want training in, they often say either fieldwork / NEAs or GIS. This has been the case for quite some time now. It's also important to say that the GIS skills acquired need to be introduced to students in a co-ordinated way, with progression from the Early Years up to 'A' level (and beyond). 

With that in mind, here are some forthcoming courses that you might want to explore. Perhaps get them booked in before the end of the academic year if you have a little bit of money left in your departmental budget.

One course is actually taking place today in Coventry. 

If you have a group of schools and would like to host an event, please get in touch with the Education team at the RGS-IBG. This is particularly the case if you are not in London - the team is always happy to travel for a suitable group of teachers.

25th September 2024 - London - Kensington - Digimap for Schools

8th October 2024 - London - Kensington - Getting Started with ArcGIS

9th October 2024 - London - Kensington - Going further with ArcGIS

24th October 2024 - University of Leeds - Getting started with ArcGIS

7th November - Exeter School - Going further with ArcGIS

Dates for 2025 will be released later in the year.

These courses are also accredited as counting towards the time evidence and allocation for those who are Chartered Geographers, or are thinking of applying to be a Chartered Geographer.

GA Publications in the Internet Archive: Geography in Primary Schools (1970)

One of quite a few books that can be borrowed from the Internet Archive free of charge if you are interested in finding out more about the development of school geography (and the GA).

From 1970

https://archive.org/details/geographyinprima0000geog

Produced by a sub-committee, under the Chair of E. C Marchant (a former GA President)

Some former GA HQ staff also get a mention here.

Sheila Jones Legacy Fund - funding still available

 Sheila Jones was an inspirational geography teacher who had a lifetime of involvement with the Geographical Association. She was the first female teacher to be elected GA President in 1975 and her considerable service to the GA was recognised in 2007 when she was awarded Honorary Membership of the GA. She was also a member of the GA Bristol Branch and became the National Branch Officer.

The GA is very grateful to the estate of Sheila Jones for a legacy donation of £10,000 that has been received. Sheila was a great advocate of networking and therefore, this donation will be divided into 100 packages of £100 each and used to support, rejuvenate and develop networks through the GA.

The first 100 eligible network events that are received after 1 September 2022 will be able to claim a legacy package of £100 each to support their networking event.

Events supported by the Sheila Jones Legacy Fund will be asked to share a PowerPoint slide at their network event which celebrates Sheila’s contribution to the geography education community and to complete a case study that the GA will collect and collate together to share with the GA community.

Details in the latest GA magazine:

There are still many bursaries left, and hundreds of teachers have already benefited from this scheme.

GA Presidency Month 11: July 2022

July sees the end of the school term and the start of the summer holidays which are a particular focus for teachers.

For me, the month started with a flurry of activity and continued to be busy for most of it.

The first main event was the PTI Subject Enrichment Residential.

This is an annual event (now back after several years when it could not take place).

It is hosted by Cambridge University, and takes place at Downing College, which is close to the city centre, and runs across three days.

Claire Kyndt, my colleague also presented her ideas which were based on the Dear Data project: data visualisation.

This was followed by a trip to Parker's Piece to carry out some fieldwork. This included a range of options for collecting data or interacting with the place.

Interestingly, the area was occupied by the stalls, stage and other elements of a free weekend Mela event. This included an observation wheel which Claire and I went on for a good view of the area, across the city, and with a distant view of Ely Cathedral on the horizon. There was some good feedback from the delegates.

It was then down to Stansted to catch a flight to Madrid. Thanks to Claire for giving me a lift to the airport. Thanks also to Miguel-Angel for picking me up. 

I was there for 4 days to lead a course for the GI Pedagogy project. We were hosted by UNED.

The GI Pedagogy project had received an extension of four months from the British Council.

I've previously blogged about the nature of this project, and the one that predated it. I co-presented the introduction to the 3 day course, and multiplier event with my colleague Michaela Lindner Fally from Borg Obendorf school in Austria.

The training course at UNED took place on Monday to Wednesday.

We are grateful to the delegates who joined us from a number of countries. There were also quite a few online delegates.

Luc Zwartjes, one of my colleagues was leading quite a few of the sessions, and was then heading off to the ESRI User Conference in San Diego where he also presented our project to a good audience. 

GI Pedagogy presented at #Esri EDUC 2022 pic.twitter.com/WfgmDpc3hJ

— GI Pedagogy (@GIPedagogy) July 9, 2022

Final days of term then followed, which were also hot, and included the Powerhouse Games with John Willis and the team.

A Governance Working Group meeting also took place, where there were several important items to consider for next year. This is part of the strategy work which the President is involved in. It took place in London as a 'central' location for most of us.

There were also plenty of submissions to look at from the GA's two Quality Marks: Primary and Secondary. This has been part of my summer routine for over ten years now. There were plenty of entries, which is great to see.

The PGQM is the Primary Geography Quality Mark which schools can apply for. I have been moderating applications for some years now, and this year there were a growing number of schools as some had deferred 

I was involved in a Zoom meeting with a school which had opted to go straight to an application for Gold. This was a lovely chance to find out more about the way that a few individuals can make such an impact within a school.

The IGU Centenary Congress took place in Paris, following another related event in Rennes the week before.

The GA has been connected with the IGU for some time now, with the work of former GA Presidents such as L Dudley Stamp and Norman Graves.

Sadly, this coincided with a heatwave and unprecedented heat and my travel plans were thwarted at the last minute as trains were delayed and I missed the Eurostar, which it then turns out was delayed by over three hours and took about six hours to make the journey. The heat in Paris was a factor, along with vandalism of the power lines.

The return journey also looks like being problematic.

This was a bit of a disaster as I'd spent weeks working out my itinerary of various adventures around the IGU sessions that I was involved in, with some Georges Perec fieldwork to carry out.

The paper I'd worked on can be viewed and downloaded from ResearchGate.

It was great to see that our GI Pedagogy project was presented at the IGU however, and with a great turn out for the session.

We also had some unprecedented heat, so instead of suffering 40 degrees in Paris I was present to experience 40 degree heat in the UK instead, which led to fires destroying houses just 20 miles from where I live.

This map highlights the places that are forecast to be hotter than the UK on Tuesday.

It's about 1.2% of the planet's surface. pic.twitter.com/1CW6krIOtb

— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) July 16, 2022

There were other jobs to do this month:

• looking at applications to be added to the GA's list of consultants and checking the references and credentials
• working on ideas linked to the GA Conference 2023 and tweaking the format to reflect changing nature of CPD and the wishes of teachers
• further work linked to the Governing Body and following other strategy meetings - much of this work goes on behind the scenes and is not really public but is important
• contacting new trustees to welcome them to the Governing Body
• work on website developments - this is ongoing work
• continuing work on projects related to the GA's Strategy: Advocate, Connect and Empower.
• started the moderation of SGQM with a meeting of the moderation team. I've been involved with this since the start of the Award.
• some final work on the D3 ERASMUS project
• more work on the GI Pedagogy project.

I also had some good news towards the end of the month.

I have been successful in my application to receive a Fawcett Fellowship for 2022-23 from the UCL Department of Geography/Institute of Education.

This will involve me in some research and writing and offers a fund to pay for related expenses. My focus will be on the everyday and how it forms part of curriculum making.

I also met up with Denise Freeman, who will be GA President in 2023-24 to talk through some of the work that Presidents have to do.

The month ended with a long awaited holiday.

Topsham in Devon is a place which we have been visiting as a family for many years and we generally stay in the same place, which sits right on the River Exe. It was great to be back again.

Here's the Cobb at Lyme Regis:

The month ends with the usual Twitter stats, which show a busy month but one which had fewer tweets than usual - a pattern likely to be continued next week. 

This leaves just one month to go and then my year as President will be over all too quickly. 

I hope to pass on my experiences to future Presidents and I hope my Presidents blog project will be a legacy that I will add to when I get the chance to visit the GA Archives.

Images: Alan Parkinson, Sophie Wilson, Luc Zwartjes

COBRIG Meeting

As part of my Presidential journey I was asked to attend a meeting of COBRIG: the Council of British Geography.

This includes members from the following organisations - some educational and others from awarding bodies, inspectorates and government bodies. 

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)

COBRIG has been in existence since 1988.

It was created:

"to advance the interests of geography, and is made up of all the main organisations of geographers and geographical educationists in Britain."

Prominent among its initiatives in the educational context has been the recent COBRIG-inspired Geography into the Twenty-First Century (Rawling and Daugherty, (1996)), which has at its heart the central issue to which this article has been addressed: putting the  geography back into geographical education. This offers the basis of a fruitful agenda as represented, among other things, in Haggett’s delineation of ‘the central and cherished aspects of geographical education: a love of landscape and of field exploration, a fascination with place, a wish to solve the spatial conundrums posed by spatial configurations’ (Haggett, 1996, p. 17); in Johnston’s advocacy of a refreshed, dynamic, and distinctive place geography (pp. 73-4); and in Jackson’s concern for developing sensitivity to place connections at a variety of scales (p. 91); or, as Allen and Massey have put it: 

‘We live local versions of the world and in so doing we have to locate ourselves within a wider global context. We only understand the changes taking place in our own backyard when we begin to understand how changes taking place elsewhere affect our world’ (1995, p. 1)

Source: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/pluginfile.php/631169/mod_resource/content/1/geog_sk6_06t_5.pdf 

Neil Simmonds and Eleanor Rawling were originally involved from the GA's perspective, along with Richard Daugherty.

COBRIG previously ran seminars for geographers as well through the 1990s in particular.

This meeting was held at the Royal Geographical Society - the first time I'd been there for about three years and it was good to be back in such a historic location.

It was lovely to meet some old friends - particularly Erica Caldwell who was representing SAGT / RSGS, and also to make new acquaintances.

Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license.

GA Presidency Month 5: January 2022

Arriving in 2022 means that this was the start of the second phase of my Presidency, and the 8 months leading up to the end of August. January has been a very busy month.

I started the year with meetings related to the working of the GA, and connecting with the GA's Strategic Plan (2020-25)

There was good news with an award for one of the GA's resources. Well done to all those involved in creating the resource which has won a TeachPrimary award.

We're delighted to have received the @TeachPrimary four star award for our Primary Geography CPD Packs 1-5 in the mail today!

Once again, thank-you to @TeachPrimary for the award and for the beautiful trophy.

Find out more about our CPD packs at https://t.co/EafBsW5Mtx pic.twitter.com/zumI9kJq4F

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) January 6, 2022

 

The Governance Working Group is going to meet at the beginning of next month, but preliminary meetings and discussions were held to set agenda items. For those who want to know more about the governance of the GA, the GWG sets the agenda for Governing Body. 

We also saw the publication of an excellent new book by David Gardner on Curriculum which deserves to be purchased and used by all secondary geography departments. 

We also had first sight of a National Research Report on the "professional needs and views of teachers of geography". This was launched just before the end of the month and we were expecting to see quite a bit of coverage on TES and elsewhere, and this was certainly the case. 

Download the report from here.

TES article here.

The report was co-written by Alan Kinder and Dr Emma Rawlings Smith.

Alan said:

'This GA National Research Report has been a year in the making and I’d like to thank all those GA members and others who gave their time towards such an insightful exercise. With a growing membership, the GA needs to work ever-harder to listen to and represent the views of its members. This report distils a huge range of ideas and makes recommendations for the GA, for policy-makers, for school leaders and teachers or geography. Our next challenge will be to pursue these findings and recommendations, so that children and young people in schools everywhere benefit from the improved support we are able to provide to teachers of geography, nationally and internationally.'

We also did final edits on the text of the latest Advocacy for Geography piece in the latest GA Magazine, which was the first in the new format, with a reducd page length for the print copy, but a larger and more flexible online offering. Check that out if you are a GA member.

If you aren't a GA member, I recommend that you join the 10 000 plus existing members to help amplify our voices.

This followed some final edits on an article which I wrote for the Summer 2022 issue of 'Primary Geography' on the transition curriculum I have developed at school. This will be out in the next issue, and thanks to those colleagues who I've worked with since last Easter to change what is taught in Years 3-5.

We also had further discussions regarding the Geographers' Gaze project. This has been funded by former Honorary Treasurer Brian Ellis and we are getting close to the first release of materials. Digital transfers of our selected lantern slides have been made and notes created. The next phase is going to be planned during the summer, and keep an eye on the website for the details of the first phase going live. We hope that you find it useful. There will be a second phase of images eventually. We have plenty of wonderful images to share with you.

I presented a session on Everyday Geographies for the GA's Tyne and Wear branch. Thanks to those who came along and for the excellent questions at the end of the session from those who were there and took my thinking in new directions. 

We started to send out the details of the GA conference to all those involved as well, as Bryan Ledgard worked on the design for the actual booklet. I also started previewing every session at the conference over on my LivingGeography blog.

There was also the recruitment of the moderating team for the Primary and Secondary Geography Quality Marks for the Summer 2022 season. I look forward to reading through the portfolios of the schools that have applied for the award.

I worked on updating the wording of some of the GA's Policies, and we also had discussions about some forthcoming changes to the GA's Governing Body in the year ahead. That acts as a reminder to everyone that there are some opportunities for you to get more involved in the GA coming up as we move into March. 

The year always starts with planning for the term ahead and the Education Group meeting - the 2nd of the meeting that I chair as President. I worked on the agenda and papers for the meeting and then chaired it - a long meeting with plenty of interesting discussions. We also welcomed Eleanor Rawling who has been working on a framework which was shared with us, and was also going to be included in the GTE conference the following weekend.

This included this very helpful diagram showing where different groups get involved in the process of curriculum change.

I also checked submissions for the IGU Session that I am chairing in Paris in July to find that there were 12 submissions to be part of the session that I am going to be chairing.

I attended a meeting of the GA Worldwise Board. Once again, this is a way for people to get involved in the work of the GA, particularly by organising or sending a team to a local Worldwise Quiz.

The Board were interested in the conference theme that I had developed and I will help with the development of some special activities for Worldwise Week later in the year. I've helped create materials in the past. It was lovely to chat to the Board members, who include a number of former Presidents: Sue Lomas, Mark Higginbottom and Steve Rawlinson, along with a former colleague 

A flyer has been produced for the National Fieldwork Week which is coming in June.

It can be viewed here:

GA National Fieldwork Week Flyer from GeoBlogs

I also had a chat with a film producer and we worked on a project which is going to be part of the BBC's Bitesize and children's programming in 2022. This was very exciting to be involved in, and followed some other work last year on the new BBC Regenerators resources for Primary.

The conference programme was shared in draft ahead of April, and bookings opened. I started blogging about each of the sessions on the programme.

I also completed the first draft of an article for the summer issue of 'Teaching Geography'. Historically, the GA President's conference paper was always reproduced in an issue of 'Geography' journal, as they were often presented in that format: read out from a paper, rather than being a little more improvisational.

The end of January is the Geography Teacher Educators' Conference (GTE), which had been due to be held at the University of Worcester.

I was pleased to be able to kick off the whole event with my own presentation on the GA Presidents and their influence, and a slightly redacted version is here:

Out of the mouths of Presidents from GeoBlogs

Particular thanks to Elena Lengthorn and other members of the GTE for their organisation, and for changing to an online format at the last minute.

I led a 90 minute session for teachers in London last week as well on the theme of curriculum making. This involved a series of ideas linked to the nature of curriculum and the part of teachers and students in the process.

This was based around some ideas on curriculum making, and also drew on David Gardner's new book.

As always, here are the Twitter statistics for the month. A reasonable return on the tweets that I've sent, and a lot of the numbers came in the last weekend when GTE Conference was particularly busy tweet wise.

This was a very busy month, and the next month starts promptly, with 2 sessions in the first 2 days.

The GA's National Research Report - now available

The GA has carried out a great deal of research throughout its history and released papers and pamphlets at intervals, often involving the President of the time, or former and future Presidents. The latest report has been compiled over the last few months and is now available to view.

Download a copy of the report here.

The Geographical Association (GA) published a national research report today, focused on the professional needs and views of teachers of geography. 

The report presents the findings from a two-stage ‘listening exercise’, comprised of an online survey and a series of focus group discussions with geography educators from the primary, secondary and post-16/HE phases and from Initial Teacher Education (ITE).

The most consistent finding of the research is that subject-specialist issues are a key concern for all those involved in geography education, primary geography subject leaders, secondary practitioners early in their career, experienced secondary school heads of geography and geography ITE tutors. It concludes that more action is needed to meet the demands of geography educators for support with subject-specialist knowledge, skills, confidence and connections. The research also:

• points to the significant impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on geography education, highlighting that these impacts vary greatly from school to school and between individuals

• identifies what geography teachers value about their professional subject association, particularly their desire to network with one another

• emphasises the relevance of global environmental and social issues to geography and the need for the geography education community to respond to these issues.

GA Chief Executive Alan Kinder said:

‘This GA National Research Report has been a year in the making and I’d like to thank all those GA members and others who gave their time towards such an insightful exercise. With a growing membership, the GA needs to work ever-harder to listen to and represent the views of its members. This report distils a huge range of ideas and makes recommendations for the GA, for policy-makers, for school leaders and teachers of geography. Our next challenge will be to pursue these findings and recommendations, so that children and young people in schools everywhere benefit from the improved support we are able to provide to teachers of geography, nationally and internationally.’

I was pleased to have played a part by facilitating one of the focus groups. Thanks to all those members and non-members alike who contributed to the fnal report, and particular thanks to Dr. Emma Rawlings-Smith and Alan Kinder who co-authored the report and to all those involved at various stages in its production.

The TES has picked up on the fieldwork issue for newly qualified teachers, which has been missing from many ITE courses:

New geography teachers lack the confidence to teach fieldwork after having limited experience of it during the pandemic, @The_GA warnshttps://t.co/DzJgTBx14c

— Tes (@tes) January 27, 2022

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

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.