I have been sharing my thoughts from the first Geography Symposium organised by the PTI in association with the GA and the RGS (who hosted the event).
We had just heard Bill McGuire's bleak prognosis for our climate and I noticed this above the rear entrance door to the Ondaatje Theatre. This commemorates the work of Charles Close (who was also a GA President) who was in office as RGS President when the Society celebrated its centenary. We are preparing for the bicentenary of the RGS in 2030.
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.
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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.
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.
— Ben Noll (@BenNollWeather) July 16, 2022
It's about 1.2% of the planet's surface. pic.twitter.com/1CW6krIOtb
There were other jobs to do this month:
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
May can be a bit of an anti-climax after the GA Conference which is held in April, but it also marks the start of the final third of the Presidential term, when thoughts turn towards legacy and also transition for the incoming President as well.
I started the final third of my GA Presidency this month. The work continues though for all GA Presidents (and also the Vice and Past President)
I started the month by checking 2nd proofs of an article I had been asked to contribute to one of the GA's Journals: Teaching Geography, which began in 1975 with Patrick Bailey as the Editor. This will be published in the Summer 2022 edition.
The GA's Governance Working Group meets ahead of the GA Governing Body, to set the Agenda and also consider some strategic decisions and thinking. We decided on a date for meetings later in the month and year.
The official images from the GA Conference are generally shared by the end of April, and work goes on to write an illustrated summary of the event for the GA Magazine. These were added to a Flickr album here. See if you can spot yourself if you were there. If you missed the event completely you can purchase a set of recordings from the GA Shop.
The Geographers Gaze project moved on with web pages being built and captions added from the work I completed with Peter Fox.
I had a CPD meeting with Guy Nunnerley - the Head of Geography at Wisbech Grammar School - regarding my own PDR (Professional Development Review) - an annual or biannual obligation for many teachers - focussing on KS2-3 transition. Thanks to Guy, who I used to work with when he started out in his career - for giving up the time to meet with me and share what he and his department are doing, and their plans for next year. It's important as teachers that we get to see what other schools are doing and I've been very fortunate to visit hundreds of schools over the years in various roles.
Open Day was held on the 7th of May at school - we welcomed visitors and parents who were thinking of joining the school. I then headed home to join the Charney Online Conference.
This was an excellent one-day event with good conversations. I used the presentation here:
Thanks for the kind words. I also learned a lot from the other presenters and have access to their presentations as well.
The following week was a D3 Multiplier Event.
The GI Pedagogy project had been presented at the EuroGeo Conference in Mytiline in Greece the weekend before but I was unable to be there. We heard that the British Council had approved an extension due to COVID preventing a lot of our work, which was good news, so thanks to them. Another ERASMUS project involving my school: Rise the Life was also able to carry out its long delayed residential mobility to Turkey as well.
The ESRI UK User Conference returned to a face-to-face format, and I had permission to make my way down there. Sophie Wilson and Brendan Conway from the GI Pedagogy team were there. I also had the chance to meet up with the ESRI Education folks, Steve Brace from the RGS, Shanique Harris (who is leading a new RGS project called Geography for All) and Francisca Rockey from the Black Geographers group.
I had articles published in three of the GA's journals - I missed out on 'Geography' this time round. Catch them here if you are a subscriber.
Add them to your membership perhaps.
There was also a meeting of the GI Pedagogy project the following week.
Other things that I did this month:
- Completed some consultancy for a VR firm who are building scenes for students to explore with additional educational content.
- A day working at the Forum library in Norwich
- Attending part of a meeting of the GA's Post 16 and HE Committee - one of several who support the work of the GA and give up time to meet at weekends and also complete work according to a Work Plan which is then reported to Education Group.
- Discussions with Alastair Owens: the GA Vice President, about the format of the GA's Awards and preparations of papers for Governing Body
- Working on some resources for TeachIt Geography
- Working on a forthcoming book project which I can't mention
- Consultancy with a design agency
- Worked on some materials for the BBC to accompany a film made by De'Graft Mensah, which is part of a series on Empire and Ghana (where his family is from).
COBRIG is the Council of British Geography and has been in existence for many years.
The Council seeks to include representatives of all major geographical organisations in the UK. It invites representatives from the following organisations:Alan Kinder was unable to attend and asked me to stand in for him. We had several papers which were included in the agenda and I gave an update on activity largely based on the National Research Report.
The final week brought some more projects:
- an article for a cartography magazine, which looks good
- some consultancy with a design agency and others
- preparing for the next Governing Body meeting in June by writing some papers
- many personal emails and DMs on social media to share resources and ideas
- discussions around GIS use in the profession
GeogPod is the GA's Podcast, which is hosted by John Lyon. There have been over 50 episodes of the podcast so far, and remarkably I hadn't been asked to do one until now.
Paula Richardson and I were interviewed about the National Fieldwork Week. This runs from the 6th to the 10th of June.
This should be out next week.
The month ended with the start of half term holiday. Just another half term to go before a much needed summer break, when I hope to progress some projects but also decompress as we approach the end of my Presidential term, and support those stepping up to the next stage: Alastair Owens and Denise Freeman.
I was also interviewed on the morning show on BBC Radio Guernsey.
You can listen again until the end of June. I'm on from 11.16-11.30
The usual Twitter stats at the end of the month. Quite a lot down on the previous month which had all the tweets relating to the GA Conference which were all amplified.
That's three quarters of my Presidential year done.
Updated post. Sad news at the end of last week from colleagues who have organised the Charney Conference over the years of the passing of Ma...
