2001: Diane Swift

Just before Easter I spent a pleasant hour talking to Diane Swift and asking for her input on some of the projects that she was involved in during her time working for the GA, to help explore some of the connections between them. 

Other former Presidents have previously mentioned Di and the importance of her work for the GA.

From the entry by Jeremy Krause:

"I am proud that I was able to work with others to create the post of Professional Development Coordinator and appoint Di Swift in 2001."

Di was also mentioned by Keith Grimwade and Chris Kington, who were involved in the important decision to 'professionalise the GA'.

She has worked in a number of roles within the GA, and more recently has worked in Initial Teacher Education in Staffordshire.

Di was involved in a number of key projects.

These included the Young People's Geographies project (see separate blog posts) which I was involved in.

The Valuing Places project was a catalyst for many of the others. being one of the early projects when the GA was finding its way in such work. Funded projects have remained important, and the GA has a track record of very successful completion of such projects.

GeoVisions has previously been mentioned, led by Roger Carter. In many ways, this was at the heart of a lot of GA activity during the days of the first Chief Executive and the move towards funded staff at Solly Street.

The OCR Pilot GCSE Geography, which has been mentioned in a number of other posts was also important, and changed the course of my career because of my involvement.

Argumentation - Why argue (in Geography and Science)

I remember a session in Norwich at our PDC - they were good visits during the Rob Lodge era, when Di came to lead a session for us.

She also told me other snippets which will feed into other blog posts in time.

Di still works in teacher education, for a SCITT in Staffordshire.

Di has extensive experience in schools as a teacher, senior leader and a governor. She regularly contributes articles to professional journals and has authored a variety of materials that support teachers to develop both their curriculum and pedagogic thinking. She has worked extensively with teacher-colleagues on a variety of projects in relation to Philosophy for Children, History and Geography. Diane is an advocate for the Chartered College of Teaching. She also works at a national level in relation to ITE, particularly in connection with inclusion. Diane is undertaking an EdD, her research is considering the ways in which beginning teachers develop a professional language to share their developing pedagogic expertise.

She has worked on a number of publications.

I had a copy of this one when it was first published in 2005 and it still sits on my shelf and I find it useful.

She also mentioned the importance of Chris Durbin and Kate Russell and the development of the Staffordshire Learning Network - something I very much agree with.

Image source and copyright: https://www.shaw-education.org.uk/listit2people/diane-swift/61.html

References

Martin, Fred, and Diane Swift. “What Can CD-ROMs Do for Us?” Teaching Geography, vol. 21, no. 1, 1996, pp. 20–23. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23753746. Accessed 26 June 2021.

Thanks to Di for all she did for the Association while working there. 

Update - June 2025

Congratulations to Di for being awarded an OBE in the King's Birthday Honours List.

2006-11: Young People's Geographies

"Childhood has always been a disputed territory, its true geography quickly forgotten as we grow older, replaced by an adult-imagined universe." 

Libby Brooks, 2006

I've mentioned the Young People's Geographies project before, but this is a more detailed post as we enter the period of the GA's history when funded project work became more significant.

I wrote about it at the time in my GeographyPages website.

YPG was about making school geography more exciting and relevant to students by involving them in curriculum making and by focusing on their own lived geographies. 

Young people have their own distinct geographies, often very different to those of adults, and the YPG team investigated whether the learning process was richer for students if these geographies were taken into account.

At the heart of the project was the idea of conversation. These changes required teachers and students talk to each other. A big part of the first phase of the project was about establishing those conversations, and the was a key ingredient for keeping those conversations going throughout the next phase.

A key element of the YPG project was the way it crossed boundaries between academic and school geography. By working together, academics, teacher trainers, school teachers and students explored ways in which academic ideas can effectively develop the school geography curriculum and students' geographical learning.

I remember the first project meeting very well. The second one took place on a very windy day and we nearly cancelled the travelling because of it. We had a school minibus which we parked at Peterborough Railway Station to pick up the train to Leicester and on the way the train hit a fallen tree. By the time we finished for the day, the trains were all cancelled. Luckily we were a small enough group to just grab a taxi from outside Leicester train station and ask it to take us to Peterborough station. 

The project was also the first time that I met people who I have since met several times and been involved with in projects and other work.

We all met a few more times with the students. and had a final presentation event in Leicester.

Some more details below taken from documents and my own GeographyPages website (which ran from 2001 to 2013)

The Young People’s Geographies Project 

Further Information 

Phase One 

Phase One of the YPG project was split into two years, covering September 2006 – July 2008 

Year One: September 2006 - July 2007 

 Four key groups of collaborators: school students, teachers, professional geographers with research interests in young people’s geographies and teacher educators 

 Seven schools from East Midlands, Kings Lynn, London, Reading and Bedford 

 One or more teachers from each school 

 Four students from each school (Years 9, 10 & 12) variously selected 

 Open-ended approach 

 Four project days and school-based work 

 Project days (November, January, March, July) involving all groups coming together to share ideas and support the development of the project in individual schools 

 School-based work: ‘taking ideas back’, students and teachers in conversation about young people’s lived geographies and how their experiences can be used to develop the geography curriculum and ways of learning. Developing new aspects of the geography curriculum. 

Year Two: September 2007 - July 2008 

 Individual schools continue to develop YPG project 

 Development of YPG project website 

 Evaluation of Year Two and Phase One of the project Key Activities Year One: September 2006 - July 2007 

 Young People’s Geographies Project developed by project co-ordinators: Mary Biddulph and Dr Roger Firth, University of Nottingham; David Balderstone, Sharnbrook Upper School; Di Swift, Geographical Association 

 Professional geographers recruited with research interests in young people’s geographies: Dr Ian Cook, University of Exeter; Dr Tracey Skelton, then at the University of Loughborough; Helen Griffiths, a PhD student, University of Exeter 

 External evaluator appointed: Dr Nick Hopwood, University of Oxford 

 Consultant appointed: Dr John Morgan, Institute of Education, University of London 

 Seven partner schools recruited: 

King Edward VII School, King’s Lynn - my school at the time

Archbishop Tenison’s C of E School, London; 

Langtree School, Reading - where Dan Raven Ellison was teaching at the time

Sharnbrook Upper School, Bedfordshire - including Dee Saran and David Balderstone

Nottingham Emmanuel School, Nottingham 

Arnold Hill School, Nottingham 

Bramcote Hills Sports and Community College, Nottingham 

 Four project days organised (November 2006, January, March, July 2007) to bring the four participating groups together to work on activities in order to: 

• create a context for perspective and ideas sharing 
• support the ongoing development of the project within individual schools
• showcase and share the work of each school 

 Individual schools develop their own YPG project

Year Two: September 2007 - July 2008

Seven schools continue to develop the geography curriculum 

 Two project days (November 2007, July 2008) to support the ongoing development of the project within individual schools, share a framework for curriculum development and showcase the work of each school and evaluate Phase One 

 Project coordinators visit individual schools 

 Development of YPG website 

 Evaluation of Year Two and Phase One of YPG project

We ended with the presentation event which was in a room at Leicester City Hall.

I also have DVDs showing the footage of the day, and will hunt them out and snip some little elements from that.

More to come on this project in future posts as we get nearer the present day.

Images from the teacher evaluation day and exhibition in 2008 at Solly Street, while I was working for the GA - images by Alan Parkinson

2008 - Sustaining Geography Conference

Any memories of this event? I think I was at the previous event and did a small presentation on the Pilot GCSE work we were doing.
 

Cape Farewell

Cape Farewell was a project that grew out of the GeoVisions project. Fred Martin was on the GeoVisions sub group and wrote the pack.

It was a resource pack which was an important part of the work that we used for the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography as it had a focus on extreme environments. It had a spiral bound pack and a CD with a series of resources and images. It had heavy use for three years that we taught the Pilot GCSE. Here's a trailer video for a later phase of the project.

Cape Farewell - An introduction from Cape Farewell on Vimeo.

Cape Farewell changes the way we think about climate change. Climate change is a reality. Caused by us all, it is a cultural, social and economic problem and must move beyond scientific debate. Cape Farewell is committed to the notion that artists can engage the public in this issue, through creative insight and vision.

Artists and authors were taken to the Arctic, and there was also a link with Svalbard, which became a focus for my teaching.

The project itself explores the cultural response to climate change.

References

Mitchell, Alistair. Teaching Geography, vol. 30, no. 1, 2005, pp. 59–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23756577. Accessed 29 Mar. 2021.

Thanks to Fred Martin for his memories of the creation of this pack and the images which brought back a lot of memories for me. I left these packs behind when I left teaching - wished I'd kept a copy now, as there don't seem to be many around...

2003: Building Sustainable Communities

Building Sustainable Communities was a GA project which was run in association with the Academy for Sustainable Communities, which later became the Homes and Communities Agency, but was then subsequently replaced again by Homes England... can't keep up with these governmental changes....

Building Sustainable Communities arose from two linked ideas. First of all the idea of living geography - at home and outside the front door - one of the GA's key concepts and one which we've developed over a number of years through our project work. The second was about participation now and for the future - how do students make a positive contribution to the community and how will they develop skills which will contribute to their future economic well-being?

The project also asked two questions: 'What is meant by sustainable communities?' and 'How do geographical skills lead to engagement?'

One of several projects involving the GA over the last few decades. They will feature on this blog in time.

To support the project, groups of teachers were engaged in action research in four regions - Kent and Medway, Milton Keynes and South Midlands, Humberside and Plymouth and South Devon.

The project was ultimately involved with the creation of  this DVD, which I still have a copy of.

This fed into the development of a unit in the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography, which was on Sustainable Communities.

More details here. (PDF download)

Main image: Eddington Sustainable Community in Cambridge - fieldwork day - Alan Parkinson - shared under CC license

OCR Pilot GCSE Geography

This was originally posted on my LivingGeography blog.

One offshoot of the GeoVisions project which I have previously blogged about seems to have been the development of a new qualification, which I had the great pleasure of being involved in teaching for three years as I moved towards the end of my first period in the classroom. This was developed in association with OCR, and involved a range of groups. This was related to the idea of GEOGRAPHY 21: a Geography for the 21st Century.

The qualification was the OCR Pilot GCSE Geography. It was the best specification I had the pleasure of teaching, and ran it for the last few years of my teaching before I left to join the GA in 2008 as Secondary Curriculum Development Leader.

This was called the OCR Pilot GCSE project.

The GeoVisions sub-group included:

Diane Swift, Chris Durbin, Leslie Warner, Fred Martin, Linda Thompson, Jeremy Krause, John Hopkin, Ian Mack and Lisa Mitchell.

Eleanor Rawling was also involved in the development of the materials, as was Phil Wood from the University of Leicester and also Justin Woolliscroft.

See https://www.geography.org.uk/download/prgcsepilotgcse.doc - a link to the document download from the GA website which has a great deal more information. If you have never heard of this specification before you might be surprised at how it was organised.

The first and second tranches of the Pilot schools were added in 2003 and 2005, and the 3rd tranche was added for teaching in September 2006 - this included my own school: King Edward the Seventh High School in King' Lynn. The GEOGRAPHICAL ASSOCIATION had information on the PILOT GCSE run by OCR. 

In total, around 70 schools were involved in the Pilot for this GCSE Specification. Resources and ideas, many of which have been kindly provided by Paula Cooper from King Edward VI 5 Ways school in Birmingham, were also in this area. 

The course had the code 1949.

Using the Web Archive, visit this archived page here. Most links still work through to more information about the specification.

The OCR Pilot GCSE exam was worth 33% of total grade: with 67% coursework

The course was based around 5 key themes: called FUGIS.

  

Fugis from GeoBlogs

Here is the Specification - take a look:

OCR GCSE Pilot Specification 2005 from GeoBlogs

References

Page on my Geography Pages website from 2008 - via Web Archive

GA Support for the Pilot GCSE - via Web Archive

My KES Pilot GCSE Geography blog

Were you involved in teaching the Pilot GCSE? 

Get in touch. I'd like to take a look back at this over the next few years. Is it time to revisit the specification and consider its approach to assessment, given that with CAGs and TAGs, teachers are now being expected to assess students with less exam input.