2014: Mark Higginbottom

Mark Higginbottom was GA President during 2014. He has spent a career supporting other teachers as an advisor and school improvement officer since 2002.

As with more recent Presidents, much of this entry has been written thanks to contributions from Mark to a questionnaire which I sent round to all the Presidents who are still around to answer one.

Mark has worked in the North West of England for many years, and has a long association with that part of the world, having been born in Stockport in 1965 - which makes him younger than me. A whippersnapper President :)

Mark also kindly invited me over to Wigan to lead a session for him while I was working for the GA, which I remember was held in the function ground of a local rugby union team with a lovely group of teachers.

Mark went to New Mills School, then went on to study at the University of Manchester (BSc Joint Hons Geography and Geology, before going to Sheffield University to do a PGCE in Secondary Geography, where his tutor turned out to be another former GA President: the remarkable Margaret Roberts. These encounters were important in Mark's further engagement with the GA as well as his own professional development.

He has been particularly associated with the Worldwise brand, including the Worldwise Quiz (including the website element) and the Worldwise Challenge weekends.

Mark has also accompanied teams to the iGeo events to locations around the world. In 2019, there was a particularly impressive performance by the team. More on that competition and the role of the GA has been posted separately.

Mark chose Making an Impact as his Conference theme.

"Making an Impact'. The theme of ‘Making an Impact’ provided an opportunity to reflect on the geography our young people encounter and engage with and the relevance it plays to their everyday lives and experiences, be they EYFS, primary, secondary, post 16 or HEI students and whatever their ethnicity or socio-economic background.

I have been a GA member since September 1998. You had to join before Margaret Roberts would let you onto her PGCE! Since 2001 I have coordinated what was Geography Action Week (now Worldwise week), which led on to being the GA link for the Challenge weekend and have been co-chair of Worldwise since 2005. I have been team leader for the International Geography Olympiad since 2006. In 2019 in Hong Kong TeamUK had its best ever success, ranked 3rd in the World (43 countries competed), with a gold (the student was 2nd in the World out of 167 students, a silver and two bronze. 

I was a member of the membership and professional board for three years before electing elected to Council, serving for two and a half years before it became the Governing body, whereon I served for six years. Twelve months later I was elected as President for 2014 - 2015."

During his Presentation Mark included some voices from young people, with the help of Daniel Raven Ellison.

It included this thought provoking question:

“Asked if geography helps young people shape an understanding and appreciation of the world around them, whoever they are, wherever they live and whatever their academic interests, I believe we would all immediately respond with a resounding ‘yes!’; but do we really know the impact geography has on shaping them as ‘well rounded’ human beings?”

Mark's Presidential Address in 2015 was memorable, particularly for him.

He told me:
"The buzz of conference in your Presidential year is hugely memorable. Meeting teachers and young people and seeing your theme being put into practice and the impact it was having was a real success for me. Working with the three other Presidents as a team ensured synergy between years to further strengthen and embed my own theme over time. The minutes before my Presidential lecture will be a lifetime memory, in many ways!" - another President to mention the lecture - should I be worried?

Mark is now heavily involved in the iGeo competition, which takes students around the world to compete in the annual Geography Olympiad. The 2019 team had particular success, and the momentum behind this competition has been building, although the Pandemic has sadly curtailed competition and travel for a while.

Mark has been described by other Presidents as a particularly talented teacher and colleague, including those he has been worked with personally over the years.

Why the GA matters to Mark?

"The GA matters hugely. It is a community of like-minded professionals committed to working with teachers, educators to enrich young peoples lives through geography."

Mark also mentioned the importance of the support of other former GA Presidents as part of the personal journey:

"Many previous presidents were all very supportive and encouraging during my time as President. Of note however was Professor Michael Bradford. Mike was my lecturer at the University of Manchester and was doubly keen to support me in my year, as conference and the associated futures day was at the University. Mike met with me many times, providing wisdom and guidance, for which I will always be so very grateful. Mike pulled out all the stops to make my presidential term, my 2015 conference and the futures day a great success for everyone."

Images: copyright Bryan Ledgard / GA and used with permission.

Selfie of Mark in his natural habitat sent by Mark himself 

References

Mark has written for a number of GA Publications over the years, and contributed to the materials which are made available for Worldwise Week (formerly Geography Action Week) - former packs can be downloaded from here.

Mark's Presidential Lecture - 'Making an Impact'

https://www.proquest.com/openview/bdae85f83bebfa6979fc8a9b33bd373d/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=28686

As always, any memories of Mark in his time as President, or working with the GA welcome...

Worldwise

Worldwise is a familiar GA 'brand' to many, and has links with many former GA Presidents.

The Worldwise Quiz has been around for decades. A number of quiz books have been published over the years: small format books which I had copies of in my filing cabinet when teaching. Worldwise connects with other GA activity in the same way as the Quality Marks cut across several strands of GA support. It was developed by Rex Walford.

Details of how to enter the competition, and also some sample quiz questions are available to download from here.

Worldwise also feeds in to the International Geographical Olympiad. (See Sue Lomas' entry for more on this, and also Mark Higginbottom)

Jeremy Krause gave me his thoughts on the developments:

2015 Mark Higginbottom who used part his Presidential Address to share his ideas and experiences of the Worldwise programme. This was about students and them learning geography. That has been at the heart of the GA since 1893. Mark with Sue Lomas have been the driving force behind the ‘Worldwise’ programme which focuses on developing school students’ skills and knowledge of Geography. This has been a massive commitment for them in terms of time and energy in the UK and overseas. They have made this highly successful programme one of the GA’s jewels. 

Worldwise also connects with Worldwise Week (WWW)

WWW is linked with the theme of the yearly conference.

You can download the packs from previous years going back to 2007. I recommend doing this.

I will be thinking about possible activities for the 2022 Worldwise Week pack over the year ahead.

Here's the Worldwise Statement of Purpose 

The overarching principle of Worldwise is to engage geography teachers and young people with geography across a range of paradigms to develop a secure understanding of the World. It develops young people’s geographical vocabularies, their geographical imaginations of the World around them at a variety of scales and it stimulates their personal geographies. A key aim is to provide directly to teachers and young people opportunities that stimulate a passion trough their understanding of geographical concepts, constructing meaning, deeper thinking and understanding of interconnectedness, interdependency and processes in a world of change. Worldwise engages young people from EYFS to post 16 across its brand of activities. It has to support the acquisition of geographical vocabulary, stimulate interest in young people in a discipline not just seen as a school subject and encourage them to challenge their own thinking, perceptions and those of others within and beyond the classroom environment. This demands Worldwise to generate resources ranging from those seen as ‘knowledge- based, portraying a simpler view of the world and geography through knowledge recall particularly through its face to face and online quizzes. We view these as developing what we would term, enabling knowledge. Students have a knowledge framework which enables them to explore concepts and develop ‘thinking geographically’ with a firm base of knowledge about the world. Worldwise challenges teachers and young people to identify and reflect on their personal geographies and geographical imaginations. To recognise different approaches to understanding the concepts and processes that holds geography as a subject together. The Geography Awareness Week resources, allied to the current Presidential theme are a key element of this challenge. The themes selected, modern approaches to learning and the application of modern technologies all encourage up to date thinking and learning in geography. The awareness week resources encourage teachers and young people to further their understanding of geographical concepts, construct meaning, deeper thinking and understanding of interconnectedness, interdependency and processes. The focus on investigation and enquiry secures awareness week materials as supporting best approaches to twenty first century learning in geography and provides teachers with additional, free, up to date materials to support their curriculum. The ‘week’ acts a as lever for many schools to raise the profile of geography both within the school and often, within the wider community. The Worldwise team deliver two additional activities to engage teachers and young people in new approaches to geography and making geography real. The Worldwide Challenge weekend, for schools who have engaged in other WW activities most successfully brings young people and teachers out into the field in some of the most iconic areas of the UK. The joint GA / FSC partnership generates fieldwork activities that stimulate and challenge geographical thinking, in ways often not seen in the classroom or possible in the classroom. Worldwise delivers an annual post-16 competition, focussing on a geographical issue that is ‘live’ at the time. It stimulates older students to engage with a current aspect of geography, to research it beyond the text book and provide a reflective, evidenced based view of the issue from different perspectives. The winners represent the UK at an annual International Geography Olympiad.

The Worldwise Challenge is an annual fieldwork event organised in association with the Field Studies Council. It is hosted at an FSC centre, and Presidents have previously gone along to get involved and award prizes to the winning team.

References

Walford, Rex. “‘But First the Facts Must Be Familiar..." A Review of the Worldwise Quiz.” Geography, vol. 74, no. 3, 1989, pp. 252–254. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/40571674. Accessed 15 Nov. 2020.

https://www.geography.org.uk/WorldWise-Challenge

2005: Sue Lomas, OBE DL

Sue Lomas is a stalwart of the GA, and is still active supporting Worldwise Challenge (being Chair of the Worldwise Board) and international GeoOlympiad events, along with other contributions to the GA, as well as serving on the GA's Education Group.

Sue was also another GA President with experience of teaching, having been a Head of Geography in two schools.
At the time of taking up the Presidency she was a School Improvement Officer, and in fact she asked me over to Salford to work with colleagues from a school there and introduce them to some GIS ideas when I was working for the Geographical Association back in the day. 

She is also involved in the GA Manchester Branch

She was Head of Geography at Connell Sixth Form College.

Sue has also been awarded an OBE for her services to young people and Scouting.

She is still involved in promoting Outdoor education, and was involved early on in the development of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (CLOtC) with its award and accreditation scheme. She also participates in the organisation of the GeoOlympiad competitions, accompanying competitors to their venues.



I am grateful to Sue for sending more information via the Google Form which I set up for this project.

She told me:

"I was born in 1953 in Birmingham

Sue attended the King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Girls - one of the best known schools in the city.
I have a University of London degree but studied in Derby. I then did my PGCE in Cheltenham for a Bristol University Certificate.
I started out working as a geography teacher in rurban Cheshire, before moving to Macclesfield to become a Head of Department and then Senior teacher. I was also an advisory teacher for geography in Cheshire with Jeremy Krause. I met Mark Higginbottom for the first time here. He was an NQT in a Cheshire school whom we were working with. 

I moved to be the Foundation Subjects Consultant and then Key Stage 3 Strategy Manager for the National Strategies."

These were an important part of teaching development during the 2nd decade of my time as a geography teacher.

"Moving into a school improvement role, I became an inspector for Geography ITE. Taking early retirement in 2010 I started my own company and became a schools' inspector. I also inspected abroad in the UAE. I have joint-authored two sets of Key Stage 3 textbooks, both edited by John Hopkin. One for the UK: "Geography Matters" and another for Pakistan.

My passion has always been for my subject and if people ask me what I do, I always say I'm a geography teacher - as this was my first love.

I have been involved with the GA since the 1980s when Jeremy Krause invited me to join the geography education community. I have always enjoyed working in a collegiate way, and to get together with like-minded professionals, and the GA provided me with lots of high quality CPD in my own role. 

After serving as the President (for the four year cycle introduced by Michael Bradford) I moved on to Worldwise and was lucky enough to have accompanied the UK Team to the Geography World Championships in venues across the world (sadly now defunct) and from 2006 I was one of the chaperones for the UK teams who attend the International Geography Olympiad. 

I am now the Chair of that competition - what a fantastic opportunity that has been - working with colleagues from the iGU. Meeting young people from over fifty countries and working with their leaders (teachers or university staff) to write the three tests has certainly been a privilege.

I am a GA Consultant and that has given me a range of experiences from reviewing the quality of geography in Liverpool to supporting new heads of department across England. 

I am also an assessor for the PGQM."

When she became the GA President, she was the Key Stage 3 Strategy Manager for Salford Local Authority.

Sue's Presidential theme was "Sensational Geography".

Sue told me: 

"I think in those days, the theme was very much influenced by the GA (rather than chosen by the President as they are now), so I think I agreed the theme with David Lambert, who was the CEO at the time. I was always keen to "promote the varied approaches and the rich, diverse resources that we can share" (excerpt from Conference brochure). 

I started in the GA as the volunteer PR Officer and then became Chair of the M & P D Committee. I have been involved in Worldwise since the 1990s at first with Keith Orrell, when we were tasked with updating the whole offer for students. That was when we changed the Worldwise Quiz Final (which tended to happen at the GA Conference itself) to the Worldwise Challenge. 

The latter included the practical experience at an FSC site rather than the (independent) schools' final at Conference. 

Keith's and Tony Thomas' links to the FSC meant we were able to provide a free weekend to teams from schools across the country. Peter Smith was heavily involved too. Sadly, I think we have seen the last of the Challenge events, given the COVID-19 situation with residential centres. Since 2006, Mark Higginbottom and I have been joint chairs of Worldwise. I will always be grateful for the experiences I had and the people I met at the GA, and I'm sure my career was enhanced by being so heavily involved.

Currently, I work to try and ensure that new teachers are well-prepared for the profession. I run two Appropriate bodies for NQTs and I work as a SCITT geography tutor and an Associate Lecturer in Manchester Metropolitan University.

Of her time as President, Sue told me:
`'It was a privilege to be part of the roll-out of the Action Plan and I recall many interesting meetings with the officers of the RGS, some at their headquarters. There was a real buzz about the recognition that Geography is an important subject and it was great at the conference to promote all the brilliant resources and activities that would see Geography given much greater status, particularly in secondary schools. I also have some great memories of the Conference. It was in Manchester, so it was lovely to be 'on my own patch'. The Exhibition was amazing and in those days we had a couple of good receptions - including a Chinese banquet! I also attended the Scottish Awards event. The best bits were meeting the wide range of colleagues that make up our membership some of whom were almost as passionate as me about the subject."

I have been involved with the GA since the 1980s when Jeremy Krause invited me to join the geography education community. I have always enjoyed working collegiately and to get together with likeminded professionals and it provided me with lots of high quality CPD in my own role. After serving as the President (for four years) I moved to Worldwise and was lucky enough to have accompanied the UK Team to the Geography World Championships in venues across the world (sadly now defunct) and from 2006 I was one of the chaperones for the UK teams who attend the International Geography Olympiad. I am now the Chair of that competition - what a fantastic opportunity that has been - working with colleagues from the iGU. Meeting young people from over fifty countries and working with their leaders (teachers or university staff) to write the three tests has certainly been a privilege.

References
GA News Autumn 2005 - biography and setting out her stall for her conference.



This book was co-written with Linda Thompson, who was serving on the GA's Secondary Phase Committee when I joined in 2004, thanks to the invitation of Rob Lodge. 

I remember using this book as a teacher in Norfolk.

Sue was appointed a Deputy Lieutenant of Greater Manchester in 2015.

This website has a useful short biography of Sue as well.

Sue was born in Birmingham and moved to the North West for her first teaching job in 1978. She taught Geography for 20 years before moving into school improvement work in Salford. Sue now has her own consulting business working in a variety of educational fields. She is a qualified Ofsted inspector and has worked as an Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University. Sue has a passion for her subject, and has been a member of its professional body, the Geographical Association for many years, including being its President in 2006. She works on a voluntary basis to enthuse young people about the subject and is the chair of the association's youth arm 'Worldwise'. Sue has been a member of several school governing bodies and has also worked as an assessor for the Duke of Edinburgh's Award.

A member of Girlguiding since she was eight years' old, Sue is now a trustee of the national organisation. She is passionate about promoting the opportunities Girlguiding offers to girls and young women and has recently completed her term of office as Region Chief Commissioner for North West England. Sue is also national chair of the charity 'Youth United' which supports the work of the ten largest uniformed organisations across the UK.

Sue is married to Ian and lives in Culcheth, Warrington. She has one daughter who works as a teacher in London. Jen is very much involved with the Geographical Association and its work in Primary.

Images: Copyright Bryan Ledgard and the Geographical Association

As always, memories of Sue Lomas' time as GA President welcome.