2018: Stephen Scoffham

Dr. Stephen Scoffham's professional work has been in the area of Primary Geography, and he has a long association with Canterbury Christchurch University, where he is currently Visiting Reader in Sustainability & Education.

He is also involved in a number of campaigns which look to advance the place of geography at this key stage. He serves on the Steering Group of the Humanities 20:20 group, for example.

Stephen's Presidential Address was on the theme of 'Celebrating Geography'.

I have used and referred to a great many of Stephen's books and resources over the years, and this book with Paula Owens has been of particular value when preparing some KS2 work of my own for colleagues as part of our curriculum developments for the coming academic year.

One of the first times I met Stephen was in around 2006 when I worked on a project with David Lambert to develop some atlases for Collins as part of the GA's consultancy work.

 I still use those Atlases in my own classroom, and enjoyed the process of discussing how to make sure the atlases didn't stay on the shelves as much as they normally did.

The following 'biography' was written by Stephen himself and taken from a number of sources.

Initially a primary school teacher, Stephen worked for many years as a teacher educator before taking up the post of Visiting Reader in Sustainability and Education at Canterbury Christ Church University. 

Stephen is an established author of geography teaching materials and one of a very small number of author/consultants for school atlases. 

With well over a million sales, Stephen's publications have been used in many different parts of the world and translated into languages as disparate as Georgian, Hebrew, Gaelic and Portuguese (Brazil). He served for many years as the GA’s publication officer and devised two different editions of its best-selling publication – the Primary Geography Handbook. During his Presidential year he also started a 'tradition' followed by other recent GA Presidents of engaging more with committees and special interest groups and attending meetings - he came to several Secondary Phase Committee meeting while I was secretary, for example.

He joins a number of other GA Presidents in the million-selling club. I have a way to go to reach that yet...

Deeply aware of the dangers of global warming and sustainability issues, Stephen focused his presidential year on contemporary challenges and argued for new and positive approaches using ‘celebrating geography’ as a unifying theme.

Stephen was brought up in Hertfordshire and went to St Albans School before studying philosophy and history at the University of Kent. After training as a teacher, he took up a post as the leader of a research project into urban environmental education. It was here that he developed his ideas about outdoor learning and the value of first-hand experience. As Schools’ Officer for the Canterbury Urban Studies Centre Stephen pioneered new approaches to using the school environment as a teaching resource. 

He then joined Canterbury Christ Church University as a tutor in primary education where his interest in learning, creativity and international understanding provided a rich foil for his ideas about geography education.

Stephen has travelled widely in Europe and Asia. 

He lived for a while in Istanbul after graduating before journeying on foot with friends across the Anatolian plateau – a distance of some 500 miles. As a university tutor he led study visits to south India for over a decade inspiring groups of teacher educators and leaving them with indelible experiences of different ways of living. 

More recently Stephen has directed his attention towards promoting sustainability awareness in academic life, writing about sustainability leadership and pioneering practical initiatives. A sense of place and a sensitivity to the environment pervades all these different endeavours. And his interest in the surroundings, both urban and rural, is something he pursues as a hobby as an enthusiastic walker, gardener and photographer.

In recent years, Stephen has been part of the project team for the Meaningful Maps project.

This explores how young people conceptualise their surroundings. Some of the students at my own school were involved in the early stages of the project, submitting their own maps, and work is ongoing to produce research papers and other outcomes from the project exploring young children's cartographical imaginations.

Stephen was also very helpful to me during my time as Junior Vice President, as he was the Past President during that time, and helped me with the responsibilities and chatted through some of his own experiences to help me get used to the role. This is all part of the Presidential 'journey' which those who put themselves forward for Presidency are taken on. 

References
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stephen_Scoffham

https://www.routledge.com/authors/i19629-stephen-scoffham

Meaningful Maps: http://meaningfulmaps.org/

As with some recent Presidents, Stephen has a Twitter account.

Image copyright: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

Numerous books - too many to list here.
SCOFFHAM, S. Using the School's surroundings:A Guide to Local Studies in Urban Schools Guildford Ward Lock 1980

He has also co-authored many books with other Primary colleagues including Paula Owens.

As always, memories of Stephen's time as GA President welcome...

Paula Richardson

Paula Richardson has been involved with the GA for many decades and held may different posts, and served on committees for decades.

She has also written the 'Meanderings' section of GA Magazine for even longer than I've written the Webwatch column. This comes at the end of each issue and is a sort of miscellany of ideas and links of general interest to all key stages. It always has something of interest.

Paula and her husband Tony have also written or co-written a great many resources for the GA including the Superschemes series, and resources to accompany another Paula creation: Barnaby Bear (see his own separate post)

Paula says:

After a lifetime in education including the placement and supervision of trainee teachers both in the UK and overseas I now work more specifically with teachers working towards QTS status.
Educators Abroad offers a programme to experienced teachers to assist then in obtaining fully qualified teacher status if not already held. We work in schools around the world in particular International Schools where the curriculum is taught in English. More details can be found at
www.educatorsabroad.org
As a geographer I am also an adviser, author and teacher. 

At present I chair the Publications Board of the Geographical Association and am also a member of the Governing Body of the GA.

She was educated at Ripon College of Education, Yorkshire and the University of Surrey, and completed her EdD at the University of Sheffield.

Paula was awarded Honorary Membership at the 2021 GA Conference - the Association's highest honour. 

Here is the citation that I read out.

Honorary Membership

This is the highest award that the GA makes and recognises the enormous contribution that the
recipients have made to the GA and to geography in education. This year the award goes to Paula
Richardson.
Paula joined the GA forty-five years ago in 1975 and she has given outstanding service during this
time in a multitude of ways – through her work as consultant, her many publications – including
the invention of Barnaby Bear for the QCA Schemes of work – and extensive work as chair of
Publications Board; she is a highly-valued member of EYPPC and FOLSIG; she promotes the GA at
national and international level, supporting ITE with Educators Abroad; she is also a GA Governing
Body named trustee.

She is the GA’s representative on the Education Committee of the Royal Meteorological Society.
Paula has been a consultant to the GA since 2005 and a Primary Geography Quality Mark
moderator since its launch in 2006. She has made numerous school-based CPD and conference
contributions over many years, always promoting the aims and objectives of the GA.

Paula has had a varied career; in addition to teaching, she has worked as a local authority adviser,
in ITT and in many significant roles for the GA. Other activities include her volunteer work with St
Johns Ambulance, most recently training hundreds of Covid-19 vaccinators.

She is constant in her service to the Association: few volunteers can be more deserving of this
award. As one staff colleague commented: ‘It’s hard to think of anyone who’s done more for the GA’.

Image copyright: Bryan Ledgard / Geographical Association

Rex Beddis

1988 saw the passing at an early age of Rex Beddis, who was the GA's Publications officer for some years, and also worked on books that will be familiar to many geography teachers. He was also a teacher himself, at the Elliott School.

He helped develop curriculum thinking, and his books were widely used in many schools, including my own.

One of his most popular book series was A Sense of Place. 

This involved 3 books and accompanying workbooks and teacher guide - a feature which became common with Key Geography, Geog Dot and other series, right up to the present day.

From the description:

* Presents a number of ideas through a range of data - text, photographs, drawings, diagrams, statistics and maps 

* Encourages students to form opinion through feelings and values as well as evidence 

* Develops a wide range of skills 

* Helps students to look at the future as well as understand the present

When I posted a picture of the first book, it prompted lots of memories from people who had the books, used the books, bought the books for their department, and many who still have their copies of the books, or inherited them when they moved to a new school. They include David Gardner, who has been associated with the GA for many years, and may get his own blog post in due course.

References

Storm, Michael. “The Geographical Association.” Geography, vol. 73, no. 3, 1988, pp. 268–271. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571429. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

Any further memories of Rex Beddis welcome.

Patrick Wiegand

Patrick Wiegand was the GA's Publications Officer during the 1980s.

He is referenced in 1987's Annual Report along with other GA documents.

Patrick has also authored a wide range of books, often on the theme of maps and mapping, and I have a few in my classroom library of books from the 1980s and 90s. I found one the other day when doing some tidying to organise new resources.

He taught in Primary and Secondary Schools, before moving to the School of Education at the University of Leeds. He was Reader in Geography Education at the University of Leeds and Chair of the Cartography and Children Commission of the International Cartographic Association. He is a Fellow of the British Cartographic Society, a member of the UK Committee for Cartography and recently held a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in GIS in Education. 

He was editorial adviser on atlases for Oxford University Press as well in a long career.

He contributed a think piece on Maps and Mapping to the GA website:

Download as a PDF:

https://www.geography.org.uk/write/mediauploads/research%20library/ga_tp_s_mapsatlases.pdf

He also wrote articles for GA journals:

Wiegand, Patrick. “The 'Known World' of Primary School Children.” Geography, vol. 76, no. 2, 1991, pp. 143–150. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40572062. Accessed 22 Nov. 2020.

https://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/educ02/pap5027/p5027.htm

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.

https://www.researchgate.net/scientific-contributions/Patrick-Wiegand-2002599618

If anyone has other memories of Patrick Wiegand please get in touch.