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.

GA Conference 2026 #4: Confluence conversations

One of the main reasons I go to the GA Conference is that I try to see people who I don't otherwise see from one year to the next (or even longer). 

As I've said before, a gathering of geographers is called a confluence. We are stronger when we flow together.

This year once again, I connected with former GA Presidents, including the wonderful Margaret Roberts and Bob Digby - who remain active despite being in their 80s. 

At the special meal for longstanding members, there were quite a few former Presidents; Eleanor Rawling, Richard Daugherty, Chris Kington, Keith Grimwade, John Hopkin plus Catherine Owen. Good to chat to David Balderstone and Paul Baker in particular, and catch up with Sandra Patterson.

It was also excellent to catch up with a whole host of other people including Justin Woolliscroft (who invited me up to Hull University each year when he was leading the PGCE course there. He also provided me with a handbook for my department to save me writing one from scratch. He was also heavily involved in the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. (I have a blog about that too....)

He was talking to Sue Warn - an 'A' level examiner legend.

I had a good chat with David Preece, who is the Head of Geography for Teach First. He was a member of the RGS Education Committee which I chair and always provided thorough and thought provoking contributions to our meetings. 

Cath Rule and Rayburn Tours were there, handing out posters and details of their tours.

Paula Richardson spoke to me about the 5th National Festival of Fieldwork which she is spearheading as always. The first one was held during my GA Presidential year and it's a great initiative. Get involved!

Ahead of the session that Matt Podbury and I were presenting I also got a chance to meet Daryl Sinclair, who was part of the team that created the Discover Geography series.

David Wood and Catherine Souch from the RGS were at the GA Awards as were the Time for Geography team - who were picking up more awards for their excellent films. Simon and Rachel were on the RGS stand. Ashley and colleague were here from the Geological Society.

I also caught up with Tom Collins from the Environment Agency with whom I worked on the BETT Award winning Coastcraft resource.

Helen Young was also there to present on the Roblox resources on the BBC.

There were many more conversations during the day and a half that I was there, but I hope this gives you an idea of the great people you can bump into and chat too if you attend the conference... apologies to the great many other fine geographers who aren't mentioned in this post... catch you next year!

Heading for the GA Conference for the first time?

Fiona Sheriff has written a guide for first timers for the Learning to Teach Geography blog.

GeoLincs - 18th March

GeoLincs is the South Lincolnshire GA Branch. I visited when it was in Bourne, back in 2015 in an early meeting of the branch. I'd just taken over as Head of Geography at King's Ely Junior (now Prep) and took a drive over to speak to a good group of teachers. I'm heading back there next month.

Via LinkedIn from Dr. Aidan Hesslewood, who is a fellow moderator on the GA's Secondary Geography Quality Mark moderation team.

The second Geolincs session of this academic year is approaching, and we have Richard Bustin and Alan Parkinson coming along to share lots of important ideas: Wednesday 18th March, from 1400-1700 (light refreshments included) at Spalding Grammar School.

I’m really excited to welcome Alan back to the branch (he last spoke in 2015) and to Richard for the first time, and I hope you can join us for a stimulating afternoon of geography curriculum discussion, particularly in light of upcoming reforms. This session will be suitable for all: student teachers, teachers, subject leads, and senior leaders.

Feel free to message me here if you'd like to come along.

Geolincs (the GA branch for South Lincs and surrounding counties) aims to sustain excellence in geography education in Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties. It is a non-profit network that provides opportunities for professional growth and events are completely free to attend. 

It endeavours to:
· Explore and develop teaching expertise and subject knowledge
· Share ideas through participation and networking
· Provide a forum for debate and discussion

Here's the title slide from my presentation. Hope to see some of you there.

GA Conference 2025 - a flying visit

I was only due to be at the GA Conference for one day, which meant an early start for the drive over to Oxford from Norfolk. It's a real cross-country faff. Luckily I'd made some arrangements for parking which was easy enough to reach and close to the main social event of the trip.

I was there for the Long Standing members meal. This is an annual lunch which is paid for by a previous member which allows those who are going along to the conference to meet up with former Presidents of the Association and network.

Here's a picture taken at the restaurant where the meal was held. The food was delicious. There are quite a few former Presidents in the image. How many can you name?

After that, it was a taxi up to Oxford Brookes University: the conference venue.

I didn't plan to attend any sessions other than one... and I arrived too late for that one, but managed to speak to David Lambert who was presenting it.

What I really wanted to do was spend the four hours-ish I had there to catch up with as many people as possible. I managed to catch up with lots of former GA colleagues and the team that helped me when I was President, and current RGS colleagues, Primary legends such as Sharon Witt, Anthony Barlow, Stephen Scoffham and Steve Rawlinson and many more besides. Particularly nice to chat to John Wilkinson and David Balderstone, Andrew Lee and Hermione Miao. 

I also met up with Tom Collins from the Environment Agency who I worked with on a forthcoming project for over a year but had never met in person, and folks from various publishers and lovely to see Cath Rule from Rayburn Tours as well.

There were at least 20 other people I chatted to, you know who you are - they include teachers, publishers and other geographers :)

After that, I got the bus back into the centre, and got off outside Christ Church College, where the GA began in 1893, and then to the Rose and Crown where I had a drink and chat with Phil from Wychwood School, who had kindly provided the parking place for me. Good to catch up and have a drink before the return journey which was going well until I found that the A47 was closed overnight... ideal...

Next year is Sheffield. I look forward to seeing what the venue is along with theme etc.

A few things from the tweets:

Some videos on GIS.

And also a tree carbon calculator.

This is my tree Carbon calculator that I shared at my talk. #GAConf25 🌳
Have a go! Good for in the field crunching. https://t.co/3KmZi3jm3D pic.twitter.com/Y1kDvk6xKM

— TeachGeogs 🌍 (@TeachGeogs) April 17, 2025

A reminder of Teal Tool.

And this session looked really good... 

#ConnectedGeographies epitomised by a fascinating live link up with Alex of @detroitography from the USA-Canada border in @alicelouisegrif's session 'Moving beyond the Drosscape: insider perspectives on Detroit' @The_GA #GAConf25
e.g. hand model of #HubAndSpoke urban morphology pic.twitter.com/ozWlvBW78L

— BC (@mildthing99) April 17, 2025

Check out Detroitography.

Reminds me of Rebecca Solnit's three American atlas projects, which I have copies of.

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.

Sheila Jones Legacy Fund - now available for applications

 Very pleased to see this earlier today on the GA website.

The Sheila Jones legacy fund is now available.

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

More information about the fund at https://t.co/qK3A3WBJGZ#geography pic.twitter.com/ymuXrecZ53

— Geographical Association (@The_GA) September 6, 2022

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.

I was very pleased to be able to exchange a number of emails with Sheila when I was developing my GA Presidents blog.

Sheila's own entry can be read here.

2008 - Working for the GA

It was in September 2008 that I started work for the Geographical Association. I worked there for three years, and it was the best time of my professional life and every day was CPD as I travelled across the UK and Europe, learning, writing, teaching and pushing forward the idea of what school geography could be.

I worked with many wonderful geographers, and had the chance to visit hundreds of schools and work with thousands of teachers as we worked to deliver the projects funded by the Action Plan for Geography and meet the KPI targets.

See the recent post on John Lyon for more on the time we worked together at Solly Street.

I kept notebooks all the way through that period of three years, to jot down everything I was doing, and also keep agendas of meetings etc.

Here they are:

When my job was made redundant I was bereft and thanks to many people who offered me some help in the next few years. I thanked them here.

Particular thanks as always to Claire Kyndt for changing that around 8 years ago.

Chris Durbin and SLN - 1997

A letter from Chris Durbin was published in the January 1997 issue of 'GA News' (No. 46)

Chris worked for some time with the BBC on a series of programmes in the futuristic sounding 2000 series e.g. Japan 2000 (an excellent series) and Brazil 2000, both of which were on heavy rotation in my classroom around that time. Cue the big telly being wheeled in from the office and the curtains being closed...

Chris was also one of the co-founders of the SLN Geography Forum which was behind a great deal of the innovative practice that started to be shared into the early 2000s. I've mentioned SLN Forum in a previous post. This was the Staffordshire Learning Network. It was co-founded with Kate Russell, and Andy Holt.

I know that there will be many teachers whose practice was influenced by this bulletin board, and will remember the supportive atmosphere it engendered.

I had a chance to meet Chris at the GA Conference in Canterbury, 2004, where he was presenting, and also met up at a later GA conference as well which Chris attended.

From the SLN Wiki:

The SLN Geography Forum began on 7th Sept. 1999 when Chris Durbin posted the first message. A week later he replied to his own message. On 16th Sept. Kate Russell posted her first message - no-one replied! That same day, the first of the local Staffordshire teachers, Richard West, posted a message. Chris Durbin provided the only reply. On the 21st Sept. Kate had a second try - no-one replied!

Chris now lives in the Netherlands, and would normally be travelling in his role inspecting schools around the world.

An article on SLN in TES provides this quote on its evolving nature:

"is a bit like a shanty town - it grows and changes with the people who do things".

References

SLN Wiki Page: http://geolinks.pbworks.com/w/page/11412793/FrontPage

The Forum link now tries to sell you Hemp Oil

https://www.tes.com/news/staffordshires-learning-net-unites-geographers-world-wide-web

Memories of SLN are welcome - I am sure there are many teachers of a certain age who remember being part of this community.