Climate Change and Geography

The GA recently released some statistics from a YouGov poll on the public's opinion of the value of geography's curriculum content for the teaching of climate change topics.

79% of UK adults support climate change being taught as part of the geography National Curriculum.
There was majority support for this position across male (76%) and female (82%) respondents, all age ranges 18+ to 65+ (between 75% and 87%), all socio-economic classifications (75-84%) and across all English regions (77-83%).

Curriculum and Assessment Review - the report and DfE response

We finally have the outcome of the Curriculum and Assessment Review with the publication of the final report today. Many thousands of educators have been waiting for months.

In July 2024, the government commissioned Professor Becky Francis CBE to convene and chair a panel of experts to conduct the Curriculum and Assessment Review.

The report has taken on board the many consultation responses from individuals and organisations.

These are available in a summary document which is separate to the main final report - this is also worth looking at.

The RGS's original response to the call for consultation is here. It was referenced in the final report, along with the GA's, and reports from UCL's Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education.

The report has been almost a year in the making, and runs to 197 pages.

The recommendations for Geography are as follows:

We recommend that the Government: 

Makes minor refinements to the Geography Programmes of Study and GCSE subject content to respond to the issues identified, including by: 

• Refining content to support progression better to further study, deepen children and young people’s understanding of key geographical concepts, make content more relevant and inclusive, and remove unnecessary repetition across topics. 

• Embedding disciplinary knowledge more explicitly at Key Stage 3, such as geographical enquiry, spatial reasoning, use of digital tools, human  geography and use of evidence, to ensure all children and young people have access to high-quality geographical education. 

• Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for fieldwork to demonstrate its role more effectively in supporting content and the developing of disciplinary knowledge, ensuring changes remain proportionate and inclusive. 

Embeds climate change and sustainability more explicitly across different key stages, including across the physical geography, geographical applications and human geography sections of the curriculum, ensuring early, coherent, and more detailed engagement with climate education. This should be done without risking curriculum overload. 

There is also an element of media literacy here for climate change education in particular, where there is a lot of misinformation and disinformation. There is a need for pupils to be aware of AI and its value and issues.

There is also mention of the need for diversity and for all students to "see themselves in the curriculum" - something which I was particularly keen to see.

And these will ultimately form part of changes to the national curriculum (will this be compulsory for all schools?) and GCSE subject criteria. These will be consulted on again and no changes will happen before 2028 in any case.

On the purpose of the review itself:

National curriculum content must be kept up to date, fit for purpose and reflective of the needs of wider society. Periodic holistic reviews of the national curriculum are therefore essential for ensuring these aims are achieved, as well as for maintaining overall curriculum coherence. Reviews are also a valuable mechanism for addressing curriculum shape in the round. Reviews can evaluate whether the breadth and depth of different subjects and their content remains appropriate, as well as determining the overarching aims of schooling and the time needed for the different activities required to meet these aims. Reviews can also address the build-up of content in particular areas to ensure that the curriculum remains deliverable for teachers and ambitious for students.

The Oak National Academy is also mentioned as being further involved in the development of curriculum materials which are up to date.

The DfE has responded to the Curriculum review and that is published here. This is just over 60 pages long and has a little more useful detail on the implications.

We agree with the Review that the national curriculum and the resources that support it, should reflect our modern society and diverse communities. Our aim is for the curriculum to be both a mirror, in which every child can see themselves and their communities reflected, and a window through which every child is connected to the world beyond their existing horizons and perspectives

On the topic of GCSE Natural History

Equipping children and young people to thrive in a rapidly changing world therefore means enabling them to understand and meet the global challenge that climate change presents. We will take the opportunity to enhance the climate education content which is already present in the national curriculum, in the subjects of geography, science and citizenship. We will also include sustainability within the design and technology (D&T) programme of study and sustainable practices within the citizenship primary curriculum. We agree with the Review that key concepts on climate education should be introduced earlier in the curriculum and will ensure that the relevant programmes of study contain this at primary level. We also want to go further on this and ensure that more people can engage with and develop respect for the natural world.

 
We will therefore consult on the subject content for the natural history GCSE, as confirmed earlier this year.

The Review noted that changes to curriculum content are only part of the picture and that teaching also has an important part to play through the use of climate-related examples and resources to teach existing curriculum content. The National Education Nature Park, funded by DfE, has a website which hosts free resources and activities for all education phases across a wide range of subjects. These are aligned to the curriculum and quality assured by experts, giving educators trusted information that allows them to teach about sustainability and climate change with confidence, in subjects where climate education is a core part of the curriculum content and in other subjects.

On the topic of Geography

We agree with the Review that the subject does not need significant change, and we will update and refine the programme of study and GCSE subject content with modest changes, to support pupils and teachers. As recommended, changes will support a better understanding of the disciplinary requirements in the national curriculum and in the GCSE, ensure the content is updated where needed, including in relation to climate education, and clarify and integrate the fieldwork requirements. We will also improve the GCSE subject content to support better progression, deepen understanding and remove unnecessary repetition across topics.

Some videos have also been produced on LinkedIn featuring Becky Francis.

"We will follow the curriculum principles of coherence, subject mastery and depth – making sure that programmes of study and subject content are grounded in relevant and important knowledge and disciplinary skills."

A document with some notes I put together today has been shared on Scribd. See the bottom of the post.

Others have shared their thoughts on LinkedIn, or Substack (such as Mark Enser).

There will also be a fully digital and easily navigable version of the national curriculum - we will create a rich, connected online version of the curriculum which visually represents the links within and between subject areas and gives connections to prior learning, helping teachers to contextualise learning across traditional subject boundaries in the classroom. 

Some final initial thoughts:

When a long-awaited Government document such as this appears there will be lots of different perspectives on it: from teachers to senior leaders, to those working in Trusts (who will need to adapt what they teach). 

As the Review recommends, we intend to retain a single national curriculum which serves as a core entitlement which every pupil can access. We are legislating through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill so that academies will be required to teach the refreshed national curriculum alongside maintained schools. This will ensure that parents and carers have certainty over the core concepts in their child’s education and that there is a floor beneath which this cannot slip. The national curriculum is not the entire curriculum but an underpinning of what every child is entitled to know, which schools build on locally. Schools will continue to remain responsible for deciding how their school curriculum brings those core concepts to life in their choices of historical events, physical and human geography, and novels, for example. This will allow them to create dynamic learning environments where pupils can flourish. 

From those who feel too much has changed to those who don't think the changes have gone long enough.

Some involved in climate change education will be pleased to see it referenced several times, others will feel it doesn't go far enough.

Some commentators e.g. the Daily Mail will see it's mentions of diversity, social justice and students 'seeing themselves in the curriculum' as lacking the 'rigour' that was promised in the previous iteration. 

Some will say that achieving the aims for some will be possible, but not perhaps 'for all'?

Some will ask where the money is coming from.

Some will focus on the assessment element of the review and question

Some will delve into the data that was included in the review and question some of the findings.

Some will be interested in the wording of "nature and adventure".

Some will ask about the continuing lack of take-up for GIS despite the availability of free tools such as ArcGIS and its related apps.

Some will be thinking about the place of AI in this...

Some will be considering the powerful pedagogies (echoing the work of Margaret Roberts) that are required to turn the words on the page of new documentation into the enacted curriculum. I've written about that before.

"Music excites when it is performed" - Benjamin Britten

Some will say nothing today as there is much to emerge over the next two years ahead of any impact in schools.

Some will wonder about the impact on option numbers and job security, or the state of the teaching workforce.

Some will not know any of this is happening because they're getting on with the day job... and that's fine...

What are you thinking?

Here's an implementation timeline...

Pearson are one of the Awarding bodies, and they have responded already.

Others will respond over the coming months.

The RGS and the GA will swing into action once things become clearer to support geography teachers through the changes ahead.

Thanks in advance to everyone who is going to be involved in that work.

Curriculum and Assessment Review Report by Alan Parkinson

'Changing the subject'

This book by Eleanor Rawling was flagged up for me by David Lambert in a recent conversation where I talked about some of the curriculum changes I'd seen.

It describes the changes that took place in school geography between 1980 and 2000 - the era when I trained as a teacher and then started teaching.

I purchased a copy from Amazon second hand, which turned out to have been withdrawn from the Edward Boyle Library at the University of Leeds.

Eleanor, a former GA President of course, describes the various policy decisions at national level which influenced the shape of the National Curriculum in the mid 80s, with its many many attainment targets, which were turned into double page spreads by David Waugh and Tony Bushell in the ubiquitous 'Key Geography' series.

The book was published by the Geographical Association, and the acknowledgements section mentions a whole list of former GA Presidents who were also involved in its production, particularly Richard Daugherty and also in the contents as they were a big part of discussions around the time of the development of the National Curriculum.

More to come once I've had a chance to digest it further...

1977: Geography in a Core Curriculum

In 1977, Patrick Bailey laid some groundwork for future curriculum changes to come with some work which appeared in 'Teaching Geography'.

The GA's association with curriculum has continued of course.



Sources
“EDITORIAL: Geography in a Core Curriculum.” Teaching Geography, vol. 2, no. 3, 1977, pp. 98–98. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23750399

CFBT Curriculum support - 2007-8

During 2007 and 2008, the GA were involved with CFBT to provide support for the new National Curriculum.

This brought Ruth Totterdell to the GA, and also David Rayner who were the two national subject leads. I was one of the regional advisers for the project and it was a stepping stone to my eventual appointment at Solly Street. I worked in the East of England.

Here I am at a hotel in Norwich leading some training in February 2008. I think I met John Lyon for the first time here too. This was where my session including 'never gonna give you up' by Rick Astley also got its venue I believe... where I explored case studies and topics that people persisted in teaching despite being less relevant...

2006: Keith Grimwade

Updated October 2023

When Keith Grimwade became President, he was working as the Head of Professional Development for Cambridgeshire County Council, with responsibility for the Schools Advisory Service, as well as training and development for the Council’s Children’s Services staff.

I have had the pleasure of knowing Keith for many years, and have continued this friendship partly through his association with the Cambridge GA Branch. This is my local branch, and I have had the pleasure of speaking to students there quite a few times. Our paths have also crossed en route to the GA Conference in the past. He organises social event for the GA Cambridge branch to the present day, and regular attends meetings. The Pandemic has paused this activity for a while, although the GeogMeet and Worldwise Quiz continues thanks to a lively committee. 

As with more recent Presidents, much of this entry has been written thanks to contributions from Keith to a questionnaire which I sent round to as many Presidents as possible.

Keith was born in 1957 in Southend on Sea, in Essex. He spent five years in London.

He told me, "I benefited from two very skilled teachers who saw my interest in geography and knew how to nurture it.

First, there was Miss Foster, my Year 3 teacher at Prince Avenue Junior School. 
We had to choose reading books from a trolley and I picked out a book about Thailand that was far too hard for me to read but I was fascinated by the photographs. Miss Foster let me keep it, so while my classmates were developing their reading skills I was absorbing images of Thailand, and then I moved on to other countries in the subsequent weeks.

Second, there was Jim Alves, my geography teacher at Southend High School for Boys. He led a school trip to the Lake District at the end of my first year. I had never been on holiday and the whole week was an amazing experience. I remember studying an OS map at the top of Cat Bells. Mr Alves looked over my shoulder and began to point out features. The map came alive, I could now see it in 3D and I was hooked. So, I think I’ve always been a geographer and I’ve spent my life looking at photographs and OS maps, and not much else! I read geography at Jesus College, Oxford - it was an alien culture (these days I would be helping their ‘disadvantaged background’ quota).
Not all of the teaching was that good, to be honest, but the opportunities and access to resources were phenomenal and ideal for someone who was quite happy to work independently and plough his own furrow.
The mid to late 70s was also an exciting time to be an Oxford geographer because having lost out to Cambridge and elsewhere in the quantitative revolution, it was just beginning to pull ahead with its work on the environment and climate, led by someone else who was to become a GA President, Andrew Goudie".
Andrew has his own entry on the blog of course, with plenty of contributions from Andrew himself.

In terms of his teacher training, Keith told me:

I did a PGCE at Goldsmiths and was accepted into the ILEA ‘pool’, having been interviewed by another future GA President, Michael Storm. I requested a posting in a mixed comprehensive in NE London, so they sent me to Henry Compton Boys School in Fulham. I know that ‘it was a rough, tough school’ is a bit of a cliche but it really was but I learnt a lot about how to motivate a wide range of abilities and manage a wide range of attitudes and behaviours very quickly. I was there for 5 years and then became Head of Geography at Hinchingbrooke School, Huntingdon, where I stayed for 12 years.
In 1997 I joined Cambridgeshire County Council as County Adviser for Geography, and I stayed there until my retirement at the end of 2017, having been Director of Education for the last 5 years of my career.

In the 80s / 90s and early 2000s I authored / co-authored a range of curriculum materials and text books, and regularly contributed to the TES.

His Presidential theme was ‘The Future of Geography’. Keith says:

"we were twenty years on from the original National Curriculum debates and in something of an existential crisis. I re-visited the Case for Geography (which has had its own post on the blog previously) and explored possible, probable and preferred futures. 

My sub-theme was young people’s involvement in curriculum making. I managed to combine both into my Presidential Address. 

My route to becoming President was via the Secondary Education Section Committee (on which I also served for 14 years) and the Education Standing Committee, and I was encouraged, supported and guided by two wonderful but very different geographers,

Patrick Bailey and Roger Carter.
Read Keith's Presidential Address here:

It is called 'The Future of Geography'.
(Slideplayer)
In it, he considers the new National Curriculum and some strategies for the future.
He also mentions the Young People's Geographies project, which I was involved in.
Keith told me back in 2019 why he believes the GA matters.

"Geography teachers need a ‘community of practice’ - that is the GA, it’s one and only unique selling point - that is why the GA matters. I joined the Secondary Education Section Commitee in 1991 and was involved with many committees, including chairing the Education Standing Committee. I have been a long-standing member of the local branch, helping to keep it going through some difficult times, and I have just attended my 35th consecutive annual WorldWise quiz local round; and I still don’t know all of the answers."
He told me that:

"My Presidential year was the highlight of my professional career as a geographer. It is, of course, part of a 4 year term (Junior, Vice, President, Senior) so ‘achievements’ are spread out over a period of time. 

The big curriculum initiative was the Action Plan for Geography. 

Lord Adonis was a great supporter of geographical education but could not understand why we had the RGS/IBG and the GA - politicians prefer dealing with just one organisation. Negotiating and securing the GA’s distinctive role was, I think, one of my biggest achievements, much of which went on behind closed doors and could not be broadcast. 

I keep a letter from Lord Adonis acknowledging my work, and recognising the GA’s contribution. I also helped the GA develop its strategic framework."

He also talked about the importance of David Lambert to the GA, something I certainly appreciated when in post.

"My biggest achievement was probably retaining the services of David Lambert, who was in danger of heading off to the Institute of Education full time; David did for the GA what few, if any, others could have done over the next few years."

He was also mentioned by Jeremy Krause as being very supportive.

Ketih finished with some thoughts:
These days, I attend GA events mainly for social reasons.

What really gives me hope for the future is the energy and enthusiasm of our young teachers. They will spark a lifelong love of our subject in many ‘young Grimwades’ in the years to come. And the GA must remember that its purpose is to support their passion.

Keith was also influenced by the work of the GeoVisions project.

Keith Grimwade reflects on Geo Visions as “one of the most enjoyable and influential projects that I have been involved with …” in his 2007 Presidential Address [reported in journal 'Geography' Autumn 2007]. He highlighted the strap line:

‘Create the future … don’t just let it happen’

“ The GA adopted GeoVisions under Di Swift’s leadership (see more in Di's own blog post) and over a period of two years it inspired a range workshops and publications including the GA’s [2002] Position Statement on Geography and it initiated the GA's involvement with ‘third stream’ activities. GeoVisions introduced many of us to possible, probable and preferred futures and, I now realise, to my presidential theme. To create the future of geography rather than just letting just happen we need a strategy for change.”

Keith retired as Director of Learning at the end of 2017 after 37 years in education.

He continues to be generous with his time in the local community, and to support the work of the Cambridge GA Branch.

He is also a Governor of the Cambridge and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

He is also a supporter of Peterborough Football Club, who I have been to see play with colleagues from Ely.

References

GRIMWADE, KEITH. “Presidential Address 2007: The Future of Geography.” Geography, vol. 92, no. 3, 2007, pp. 175–178. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40574331

Image copyright: Geographical Association and Bryan Ledgard - used with permission

Any further memories of Keith welcome. 

Updated October 2023

Keith is the guest on a podcast, exploring ideas of Hope. It was published on October 17th 2022.

He speaks openly about his career and personal challenges, and connection with caring.

He talks about his career in education: 20 years as a geography teacher, and later as an education administrator for Cambridgeshire, and as the county's adviser for geography.

He describes again the influence of his teacher Miss Foster, and his love of Ordnance Survey maps.

He retired at the end of 2017.

It's lovely to hear Keith talking about his "hope kit".

1989-90: National Curriculum Working Group

The National Curriculum Working Group has been mentioned elsewhere on the blog. It included several former GA Presidents.

Graham Butt: a name who has been linked with the Assocation for many years, studied this for his doctoral thesis, which can be downloaded and read as a PDF.
This fed into the Dearing Review, and resulted in an excellent book edited by Graham on Futures in Geography Education. 

Another reminder of how involved in curriculum change the GA has been over the decades.

1989: Professor Richard A Daugherty

Updated July 2025

After a first degree in geography at the University of Oxford and a Diploma in Education, Richard Daugherty taught geography at Manchester Grammar School before moving into academia.

He became Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at Swansea University and Dean of the Faculty of Educational Studies before becoming Professor of Education and Head of the Education Department at Aberystwyth University, providing a connection back to the early days of the GA, when H J Fleure moved to work there, and took the growing GA library and office with him.

Richard also became Dean of the Faculty of Arts at Aberystwyth where he is an Emeritus Professor.  In October 2010 he was appointed Director, of the Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (OUCEA). 

Richard writes: 

My working life in education was in two distinct parts. From the mid 1960s to the late 1980s I was very much involved in geography both as a teacher and through GA activities at national level. After teaching at Manchester Grammar School I moved to Swansea University as a Lecturer in Education. That brought me into fruitful contact with many geography teacher colleagues, through initial teacher training, in service courses, the Swansea GA branch and a term as Chief Examiner for WJEC A level Geography. I was learning from them about the day to day realities of teaching the subject that my own experiences at MGS had only partly prepared me for. 

Being appointed in 1987 to be a Council member of two Government advisory bodies, the School Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC) and the Curriculum Council for Wales (CCW) took my career in a new direction. Since then my work has focussed, as an adviser and an academic researcher, on the school curriculum more broadly, educational assessment and education policy. Among publications from that period are those with colleagues in the U.K. based group of assessment researchers, the Assessment Reform Group, and policy papers commissioned by governments. Some of those papers date back to the early 90s when I chaired the CCW and others include the Daugherty Assessment Review Group’s report for the Welsh Government In 2004. More recently I have been contributing as an adviser to the Welsh Government and to Qualifications Wales on the radical school reforms currently under development following the 2015 report, Successful Futures. 

My life has, however, always been coloured, professionally and privately, by my love of geography. That goes back to an inspirational teacher at my grammar school in Birkenhead, George Willan, who later became an HMI. It was further fostered by two of my tutors at Oxford, Ian Scargill and Frank Emery. When I moved to Swansea I discovered that Frank Emery had been a much respected local landscape historian, in particular of the Gower peninsula, before he moved on to a distinguished academic career in historical geography. Returning in retirement to my own interest in landscape history, inspired originally by Frank Emery as my tutor, I have joined the ranks of local landscape historians myself with several articles in the two local history journals.

Richard has spent a lot of his career exploring curriculum and worked along with Eleanor Rawling on this sort of work, another former GA President, who was President three years after Richard.

‘The idea of progression is implicit in any discussion of the nature of the learning we hope students will engage in. If we did not hope that our students would, in some sense, progress we would have no foundation on which to construct a curriculum or to embark on the act of teaching’ 

(Daugherty, 1996).

Here, taken from an issue of GA News in 2005, is the news of the award of an OBE to Richard for his services to education in the New Year's Honours List that year.

1989, Richard's Presidential year was an important one for school Geography given the changes to the National Curriculum and the need to cover many attainment targets as they were called. I started teaching in 1987 when the National Curriculum was coming in, along with changes to other assessments. He wrote a book for Macmillan to help teachers prepare for the changes that were to come - this was at a time when I was just starting teaching, so I never actually taught the 'O' Level as the change to GCSE came in just as I started teaching.

Richard had already been working as Honorary Secretary of the GA from 1976-1981 and he has kindly provided more information on Presidents from that period from his own memories of the time, which saw quite a few important events. He also wrote a book for the GA, "Geography in the National Curriculum", published in 1989.

GA NC Book Cover 1989 by Alan Parkinson on Scribd

 

To a greater or lesser extent I knew all the GA presidents from 1971 (Bill Balchin) through to 1999 (Mike Bradford). I worked more closely over a longer period with some of them - Sheila Jones, Rex Walford, Graham Humphrys, Bryan Coates, Eleanor Rawling - and have a particular respect for how much certain others on the list, such as Michael Wise, Stan Gregory, Patrick Bailey and Denys Brunsden, gave to the Association.

I am grateful to Richard for his additional details on many of these Presidents that he worked with, but also for sending this biographical note which adds extra details to those I was able to discover from my own research. He has also reported on the GA's involvement in curriculum development.

"My involvement with the GA at national level was from the mid 1960s to the early 1990s, from the exciting prospect of a 'new geography' challenging what should be taught, and how, in schools to the near disaster of a poorly designed National Curriculum for Geography. 

I was a newly appointed teacher in 1965 for whom a sleepy and unchallenging degree course at Oxford had told me nothing about the way the academic subject was transforming itself (at Cambridge, amongst other places). The chance in 1966 of a GA weekend course in Sheffield, led by Professor Stan Gregory, was too good to miss. Much to my surprise I then found myself invited ("we need young classroom teachers") to join a newly formed GA committee. It must still surely lay claim to have had the longest GA committee title ever - 'Standing Committee on the Role of Models and Quantitative Techniques in Geography Teaching'. I was thus fortunate to find myself learning from an exceptional group - including Rex Walford, John Everson, Brian Fitzgerald and Vincent Tidswell (my own PGCE tutor at Hull University) - who were seeking to translate the academic 'new geography' into approaches appropriate to school level learning. 

My own first book, 'Science in Geography: Data Collection' (OUP 1974), would not have happened if Brian Fitzgerald had not been series editor. That period was also the beginning of a longer term collaboration with another schoolteacher and future GA President, Sheila Jones (see recent post on Sheila by Richard). 

By the early 1970s I was Chair of what had thankfully become known more snappily as 'M&QT' and I was also therefore a GA Council member. I picked up on a general recognition that the GA's committee structure was in need of reform which led to a working party chaired by another future President, Denys Brunsden. The proposed reforms would prove to be vital in that they ensured the Association was much better able than most subject teacher associations to respond when the 'secret garden' of the school curriculum was opened up to wider scrutiny following Prime Minister Callaghan's Ruskin College speech in 1976.

Concurrently with the GA's committee structure reforms the Association also responded to pressure from a group of younger teachers, including myself, to establish a second journal, 'Teaching Geography'. Although the initiative had come from others, Patrick Bailey, as its first editor, was to provide the shrewdness and energy to ensure that the new journal was an immediate success (see article in Teaching Geography, October 2003). 

From 1976 until 1981 I was the GA's joint honorary secretary, a role initially shared with Malcolm Lewis and then with Bryan Coates. The new committee structure meant that the Association now had two main policy committees, one dealing with Publications & Communications and the other with Education. As secretary to the latter I shared responsibility for responding to radical changes to the school curriculum being proposed in England with its Chair, Rex Walford, plus a committed group of committee members. The national developments led to lively internal debates about justifying geography as a school subject, policy papers and presenting our case to a House of Commons Committee.

Richard told me:

"My term as President coincided with the turbulent period when the way the subject should be defined in the new Natonal Curriculum was being hotly debated. A delegation from the GA made representation to the Government's Working Group and I found myself involved in the case made to the Group by the Curriculum Council for Wales. Even when I turned up at the Group a third time, as the then Chair of the Assessment Council's (SEAC) Geography Committtee it was to no avail. In spite of the valiant efforts of some Working Group members, notably Eleanor Rawling, it was determined to define what later emerged, a deeply flawed blueprint for geography in the schools of England and Wales."

More to come on this area in the years ahead...

Richard was also present at the 125th Anniversary of the GA dinner. The image above was taken by Bryan Ledgard at this event, and shows Richard with a number of other former Presidents.

References
GA News - Summer 2005 - OBE announcement

https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/written-answers/1989/may/05/geography - involvement in curriculum development

https://www.cardiff.ac.uk/people/view/DaughertyR

Images: Richard Daugherty and Derek Spooner (GA President 2000) at the 125th Anniversary Celebration of the GA and other former Presidents group - copyright Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

If anyone has other details on Richard's time as GA President, please get in touch.

Update: December 2020

In 2003, Chris Kington asked a number of former Presidents what had sparked their passion for geography. He lent me the letters and here is the response that Richard sent:

He talks about being a new Scholarship boy arriving at Birkenhead School at the age of 10 and enjoying and achieving in geography. He talks about his teacher: George Willan, who was then HoD at Birkenhead and subsequently an HMI before retiring to the Lake District being a great influence on him.

He describes George generously as being:

"an exceptionally efficient and endlessly enthusiastic teacher who was able to embrance the full range of geography syllabus content from the regional geography that was then in vogue to the recent developments in geomorphology. His field trips were classic experiences in the best tradition of Wooldridge. It is some measure of his success with my year group that at least two of my exact contemporaries: Ian Evans and Glen Norcliffe went on to careers in academic geography".

George Willan apparently went to Tbilisi in the 1970s and helped formulate an important environmental declaration.

https://naee.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/NAEE-TRUSTEES-ANNUAL-REVIEW-2016-17_Compressed.pdf - PDF download from NAEE

Many thanks to Chris Kington for the loan of the letters.

Update April 2022

What a real pleasure to meet Richard for the first time at the GA Conference 2022. Thanks once again for all your help with the blog Richard, and for attending the Long Standing Members' meal. I hope to see you again next year.

Lovely to meet up with Richard once again in April 2023 at the GA Conference in Sheffield.

Updated 2025

Lovely to meet Richard and have a meal with him in Oxford in April this year.

1989: Geography in the National Curriculum

Thanks to Richard Daugherty for sending me this image of the front cover of a book he was involved in producing for the Geographical Association in 1989 to support teachers with the new National Curriculum. The arrival coincided with my teaching career beginning, so I now realise I was starting teaching at an interesting time.

I'd be pleased to hear other memories from colleagues from around that time and other books that were used...

GA NC Book Cover 1989 by Alan Parkinson on Scribd

1987: Progress on many fronts

1987 saw a period of plenty of activity, with the Case for Geography, ongoing discussions over a National Curriculum, the 5-16 document from DES and responses and other activity. The GA was now on a sound financial footing.

There was also reference to the Education Standing Committee (ESC), now known as Education Group, and the work of the other committees. Members of GA committees work away, often in the background, providing valuable support for this sort of work.

References

Humphrys, Graham, et al. “Annual Report of The Geographical Association 1987.” Geography, vol. 73, no. 2, 1988, pp. 162–178. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571395. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020.

1986-8: Geography 5-16

The DES / HMI published a paper in 1986 exploring the shape of school geography.

The GA published a response to the paper.

This paper is an outcome of GA Task Force' discussion meetings held at Leicester (8th November 1986) and London (7th February 1987) and with HMI representatives at the DES in London (11th November 1986). All these Task Force meetings were under the chairmanship of Patrick Bailey. Other Task Force members - David Boardman, Simon Catling, Graham Corney, Peter Fox, Paul Gwilliam, Paul Machon, Derek Mottershead and Tony Pearce - also contributed to the discussion on which this paper is based. 

References

Rawling, Eleanor, et al. “Comments from the Geographical Association on the HMI Discussion Paper Geography from 5 to 16.” Geography, vol. 73, no. 1, 1988, pp. 41–46. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571340. Accessed 14 Nov. 2020.

The GA's responses to curriculum debates in the 1970s and early 80's - 2 of 2

This is the second part of an article written for me by Richard Daugherty, GA President in 1989. See Part 1 yesterday for the context: a move towards a National Curriculum framework.

During that time, the GA was also one of the leading members of the Council of Subject Teaching Associations (COSTA). When the House of Commons Select Committee invited a COSTA delegation to submit evidence to it about the school curriculum in April 1981, the GA sent me, as Honorary Secretary (Education) as its representative.

An extract (page 174) from the Hansard minute of that meeting offers some insights into two of the main issues that were raised by Select Committee members.

Hansard - GA Response to Framework Curriculum Proposals (1) by Alan Parkinson on Scribd

A Conservative MP, Patrick Cormack, clearly believed that knowledge of place names was being undervalued in the GA's leaflet (see previous post). Referring to the capitals of European countries, he says "I went to one school recently and none of them (the pupils) knew any of them."

Which hindsight,  could acknowledgement that place knowledge had a role, if not a major role in the teaching of geography have helped the GA be better prepared for the National Curriculum arguments later in the 1980s? 

On the same page of the Hansard report (above) is my attempt to respond to a question from the Committee Chair: Christopher Price by welcoming on behalf of the GA, a potential "common system of examination" for 16 year olds. 

This would within a short period become the GCSE that was introduced in 1986.

Thanks again to Richard Daugherty for both of these posts.

The GA's responses to curriculum debates in the 1970s and early 80s - 1 of 2

I am grateful to Richard Daugherty for taking the time to send me a number of contributions to the blog. Richard was the GA President in 1989, and his own entry on the blog will appear in a month or so.

In the 1980s, Richard was heavily involved in the GA's response to the proposals for a National Curriculum. This sort of advisory work has gone on for decades and often happens in the background, with many GA members being unaware of the effort that goes into shaping curriculum and assessment. I have been involved in a little bit of this myself, going back about 15 years.

GA Council, which used to make decisions on GA Policy and other work were aware of the emerging National framework for Geography following an earlier speech by James Callagham which I have blogged about recently.

The following text and documents were provided by Richard. The documents themselves were uploaded for Scribd for ease of access and reading.

Throughout the late 1970s and into the 1980s, the GA was responding to emerging ideas from Government and from the Inspectorate that would eventually result in a statutory National Curriculum for schools in England and Wales. The first section of a discussion paper for a meeting of GA Council in March 1980 summarises developments up to that point.

GA Council Paper March 1980 by Alan Parkinson

Shortly after that meeting, I co-wrote an article with Rex Walford for the Times Educational Supplement (TES), published on 18th April 1980, commenting on the curriculum proposals.

It was titled "Overlooked in the Secret Garden".

Here's Part 1 of the article.

TES Article Page 1 18th Apr... by Alan Parkinson

Here's Part 2 of the article

TES Article Page 2 18 April... by Alan Parkinson

The GA then decided to prepare and circulate a leaflet to summarise the main features of what we believed to be the subject's contribution to the education of young people'.

'Geography in the School Curriculum 5-16' was published in January 1981.

It can be seen below:

GA Pamphlet Re School Curri... by Alan Parkinson

The GA leaflet 'Geography in the School Curriculum 5-16' was distilled from lengthy discussions in GA committees into a summary of what was then agreed as the Association's view on geography's contribution to the curriculum.

Part 2 to come tomorrow.

1986-7: Kenneth Baker

An interesting debate carried on from 1985 and Keith Joseph's speech at a special one-day conference in King's College, London in June 1985.

The GA had responded to 7 questions posed by Keith Joseph, but he was then replaced by Kenneth Baker. The letter defined elements of the GA's emerging policy towards a National Curriculum.

This had 4 key bullet points:

1. Understanding geography should be a fundamental part of every child's education

2. Geography had powerful integrating qualities in itself 'with strong links in both the sciences and the arts' and should not be seen as just a humanities subject

3. Direct observation and investigation of the environment was an important part of geographical work and should be undertaken by every pupil

4. Geography could be a vehicle for the study and discussion of controversial social and environmental issues and therefore should be studied by all up to the age of 16.

The GA tried to arrange a meeting with Mr. Baker unsuccessfully, so worked on 'A Case for Geography', edited by Patrick Bailey and Tony Binns.

This arrived on Ken Baker's desk in 1987. Baker had studied History at Oxford and he wanted to change that.

According to Rex Walford, when the GA's delegation finally arrived at his office in June 1987, he told them that Geography would find a distinctive place in the National Curriculum he was about to announce. 

This didn't turn out to be as clear cut as he had suggested. Baker had to defend his plans against Margaret Thatcher who wanted to change them.

I was broadly aware of the changes in the offing as I was completing my PGCE at this time.

The next stage was to put together a Geography Working Group to advise DES officials. This met for the first time in May 1989.

References

Rex Walford's book on UK School Geography - it is well worth reading the section on this period in this book if you can, as Rex talks about the various threats that geography safely navigated at this time, some of which were beyond the influence of the GA....

1985 - Keith Joseph on geography in schools

Updated October 2020

In 1985, the Secretary of State for Education addressed the GA's Conference and talked about some proposed changes to the school curriculum.

This resulted in a response from the GA, which was concerned at the implications for Geography's position on the school curriculum. I have blogged that previously, slightly out of sequence perhaps.

In his book on UK School geography, Rex Walford talks about his involvement in the response, and also the work of Patrick Bailey and Tony Binns (who are coming up on the blog shortly) in writing 'A Case for Geography'.

Keith Joseph asked 7 questions and Patrick Bailey responded, sort of calling his bluff according to Rex Walford.

There was also a response from Denys Brunsden, who was Senior Vice President of the GA at the time, on behalf of the BGRG.

This was all part of an ongoing process starting with a James Callaghan speech in the 1970s which opened up the 'secret garden' of curriculum. It became known as the 'Great Debate'.

Geography was a popular option under a 'free market', but the emergence of the TVEI (I used to have a TVEI tie back in the day) was an element in cutting down choice. It also led to the founding of COBRIG in 1988 and closer working with the RGS-IBG.

This was about getting "a place in the sun".

References

"A Case for Geography" - published by the GA, edited by Patrick Bailey and Tony Binns

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/40571306.pdf?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/23751212.pdf?refreqid=excelsior%3A6ebe5211589a8ba858eec7824db86441 - responses to Keith Joseph from Patrick Bailey

Bailey, Patrick. “A Reply to Sir Keith Joseph's Seven Questions, from the President of the Geographical Association.” Teaching Geography, vol. 11, no. 2, 1986, pp. 64–67. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23751212. Accessed 31 Oct. 2020.

1982: Curriculum Change

Rex Walford was involved in coordinating the GA's response to a period of curriculum change in the early 80s.
He wrote about the GA's involvement in 1982 in the 'Geography' journal.
The GA was involved in these consultations through a group called COSTA: the Council of Subject Teaching Associations. This no longer exists, although there is still a Council for Subject Associations of which the GA is a member.


This work is an important part of what the GA does to guide the development of the subject and the way it is assessed, and the content which forms part of any national curriculum, as well as advising on more local curriculum projects as well.

Reference
“Recent Involvement of the Geographical Association in the Curriculum Debate.” Geography, vol. 67, no. 1, 1982, pp. 71–75. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40570476. Accessed 22 Feb. 2020.

1922: Geography's position in Secondary schools

Geography has often had to fight for its place on the curriculum. Various GA Presidents have written eloquent and timely statements on the value of geography, and why anybody who leaves school without studying it cannot really call themselves educated.

This work has had to continue, and as we shall see later in the 1970s and 80s, Geography was threatened again and the GA played a major role in safeguarding its place on the curriculum.

In 1922, following lots of contact and lobbying of the Board of Education, along with other organisations and individuals, the Board of Education sanctioned geography courses to run in the upper forms of secondary schools.

This was the culmination of years of effort by GA Officers, and a reminder of the role that the GA has had in school Geography for well over a century.

Support those efforts by being a member of this subject-specific community of practice.