Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• competitions - the RGS’s Young Geographer of the Year and Rex Walford Award feature this week

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

Get yourself a brew and a biscuit - this is a bumper issue!

The long (very) hot summer holiday is now over, and tomorrow is the first of two INSET days to get ready for another teaching year: my 14th at King’s Ely and 35th in total. Luckily we have Hywel Roberts coming in to speak to us, so that will make it a little more bearable.

Hywel Roberts

‘Let’s Say…’®: Giving Knowledge Somewhere to Live

I’m grateful to my friend Richard Hind for sending across a Scientific American article[1] recently with a title that stopped me in my tracks…

Read more

8 days ago · 6 likes · Hywel Roberts

It’s worth reading a recent Substack post from Hywel.

There’s just a few days left to submit your thoughts on the proposed subject content for the GCSE Natural History. If you want to know more about this, or are interested in potentially teaching it, why not head over and join the Facebook group - you could be the person that takes the group over 1000 members! We will then be ready to start creating support materials once we know more about the next stage in the (lengthy) process of introducing a new qualification. The GA’s main themes for change are outlined here.

We have a new Geographical Association President from the 1st of September. Her theme is ‘Passionate about Geography’.

The President for the coming year is Fiona Sheriff: the youngest ever GA President, and another female teacher from a state school following a run of Presidents which is very much changing the usual pattern built up over 130 years. As you may know, every single one of those Presidents has been profiled and their biographies shared on the GA Presidents blog. The Word cloud above features them all.

Watch out for a chance to put yourself forward later in the year to follow Sophie Wilson, who starts her year as Vice President - and Catherine Owen moves to Past President.

Fiona Sheriff - the new GA President for 2026-7 - good luck for the year ahead! - image Alistair Hamill

I’ve just renewed my subscription to Internet Geography Plus for another year - one of the best value resource sites there is, alongside GeographyPods and GeographyalltheWay (particularly useful for those teaching iGCSE / IB DP).

We also said goodbye to the philanthropist and creator of the Imagination Library: Dolly Parton. She also had a deep connection with the place she grew up: the Great Smoky Mountains.

Posts

• I made the mistake of reading this report from the University of Exeter. (PDF) It contains some depressing (but unsurprising) predictions about the next decade. I was hoping to enjoy a long retirement. The latest report from them is here.

• Thanks to Luc Zwartjes for sharing a link to this blog post from Mark Groet’s website on the importance of geography.

• These locations were named as the most tourist-dense areas of the EU. Which of these have you visited, thereby contributing to these statistics….

  

• Thanks to Ed Conway for another Substack post based on his ‘Trade World’ book: on the 30 000 mile fish finger. I’ve used a similar story on Young’s Scampi - where the langoustines caught off Scotland are taken to Thailand to be shelled - for some years now, to show the hidden miles in foods. I have the book on pre-order.

Ed is doing anumber of talks connected with his book, and pleased to see that he is coming to Ely at the end of September.

• Visit the Fairtrade resources hub for all the school resources.

• Still collecting Desert Island Disc suggestions for my World of Music blog. Thanks to the person who had Achill Island as their island of choice for completing the form.

• A post on my GCSE Natural History blog on the 24 rabbits that were introduced to Australia by Thomas Austin in 1859.

They proceeded to breed like…. rabbits… and cause some serious problems.

• Brendan Conway has also been experimenting further with his Navigat.io GIS tool and created an app to explore urban change over time.

• Tim Winton contributed a powerful piece to ‘The Guardian’ connected with his 2024 novel ‘Juice’, which I read last year - this quote reflects the themes in the book:

A narrow class of people is profiting from our anguish. They know they’re setting our world on fire. They persist because they love neither the Earth nor its people. What they care about is money. Not just enough to get by on. Not even enough to become grotesquely rich with. They want the kind of money that bends others to their will. They seek power, buy it, co-opt it, leverage it and always thirst for more of it. As far as they’re concerned, the rest of us can go to hell – so long as we bend the knee and keep paying them as we stagger towards the flames.

• Thanks to Tim Smith for telling me about CountryClue. This is a daily flag game.

Each round you get 6 attempts to identify a mystery country from its pixelated flag. Wrong guesses reveal progressive clues: continent, capital city, population, neighboring countries, and land area — until you crack it or run out of tries.

What makes CountryClue unique is its multilingual input: type the country name in any of 15 languages — English, Spanish, French, German, Russian, Ukrainian, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, and more. It’s the perfect geography quiz for language learners and world travelers alike.

Choose your difficulty: Easy mode for famous countries, Medium for the full world map, or Hard mode for no hints at all. Play the Daily Flag challenge and compare scores with friends. No account needed — just open and play.

Whether you call it a flag quiz, country guesser, flag identifier, or world geography game — CountryClue is completely free, no ads, and works on any device.

If you scroll to the bottom of the screen you’ll also see a link ‘For Teachers’.

This provides a whole enquiry based activity, free to download.

Students play a pixelated flag quiz, discover as a class which flags survive the blur and which don’t, test the five classic flag design principles against real data, then design a flag of their own and run it through the same test.

• The Learnng to Teach Geography Substack has a useful post on setting up your geography classroom, particularly if you’re a new teacher, or have moved school and have a classroom of your own (apart from all the interlopers who will disturb your peace and quiet), perhaps for the first time.

News

“Tsunami from the sky”.

Terrifying images and videos started emerging last week from the Nepal-Tibet border, when huge flash floods raced down several river channels. There were several initial theories as to the cause, relating to landslides, glacier collapses and blockages to rivers - research is ongoing into the cause. The Himalayan region, is particularly vulnerable to heavy rains, floods and landslides because it is warming rapidly due to human-caused climate change. Bethan Davies posted about the collapse of the Langtang-Lirung glacier, which was thought to be the main cause with footage emerging. News agencies including Al-Jazeera tracked the events, and shared images, maps and videos as well as updates and it continues to attract the attention of news bulletins. There were also AI slop videos emerging within days…

Over the last week, there has been much coverage of the aftermath of the incident, with thousands missing, and with little chance that they will be found alive. At the weekend Kit Marie Rackley and Alistair Hamill recorded a special episode of Kit’s Espresso and Geography podcast exploring the incident and some wider discussions around the way that we might approach teaching such events with respect.

They examine the emerging physical geography of the disaster, the possible influence of a rapidly warming Himalayan climate, and why it is too early to attribute one complex event to climate change with certainty. The conversation also asks why some disasters dominate global attention while others remain largely unseen, and how teachers can discuss unfolding tragedies without turning human suffering into spectacle.

A respectful discussion about hazardous processes, climate justice, media representation, and keeping people’s experiences at the heart of geographical education.

Because this is an ongoing emergency at the time of recording and release, casualty figures and scientific explanations may change. These links prioritise official scientific information, peer-reviewed research, reputable reporting, and humanitarian support.

Rains have since caused flooding along the Trishuli river. Rescue attempts continue at a damaged HEP plant.

Several charities have started appeals to raise money to help the affected communities if you have a few pounds that you could spare.

Best wishes to all those who are going to the RGS Annual Conference this week. People have been arriving from all over the world.

September 1st saw the release of the new list of storm names.

Competitions

I set the RGS’s Young Geographer of the Year competition theme as work for Y7 and Y8 pupils in the last few weeks of term. The theme this year is “Source to Sea” with the theme of rivers and their journey. Judging the best will be a job for the return to school.

I’m too old for the Rex Walford Award, which is aimed at ECTs. If you are an ECT, please consider entering the award. The format has changed this year.

The deadline for the competition entries is the 2nd of October. I look forward to seeing the winners later in the year at the Awards ceremony.

Projects

More work on EMO-GI this week, with some thinking around SEL from other partners to respond to.

I also finalised my reports for this summer’s SGQM moderation and sent those off. Schools will be finding out whether they have been successful in their applications for this (and the PGQM) in the next few weeks.

There was also some proof-reading to complete on the Bloomsbury book I’m co-editing with Alex Standish - out in January 2027.

Books

I took delivery of a biography of the musician Martyn Bennett. I’ve blogged about his music numerous times, including over on my 2026 World of Music blog. The front cover is also the cover of his final album ‘Grit’.

Danny MacAskill used the track 'Blackbird’ from this album as the music for his 2014 film ‘The Ridge’ where he cycled along the Cuillin Ridge, including summiting the Inaccessible Pinnacle - I’ve climbed this myself but wouldn’t have thought to do it with a bike on my back.

Emma Espley’s Educational Roundup is back for another academic year. Don’t forget to Subscribe (you’re subscribed to me aren’t you?) Sign up for Richard Allaway’s newsletter also.

I’m finishing of Ed Douglas’ ‘Upland’ - a previous book of his was about the Himalayas and he has been sharing some thoughts on his Substack.

Images

First up is another from my daughter’s trip to Valencia, and a view of the City of Arts and Sciences with Santiago Calatrava’s architecture.

Image: E. Parkinson

Image: The East Anglian Air Ambulance taking off having landed in a field a few hundred yards from my house for an emergency in the village last week. Support your local air ambulance as you never know when you may need them yourself - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr.

Events

Finalised my presentation for the EFL Showcase event next week in Southampton. It’s on the theme of fieldwork and connecting school and academic fieldwork.

GeogLive! 34 is in on the subject of subject leadership.

5pm on September the 9th - get a free ticket here.

The RMEtS and RGS have teamed up for an event exploring some possible options for those studying geography. It takes place on the 15th of September and details can be found here.

A new GA North London Branch is opening at the end of September. The first speaker is Lucy Easthope - an expert in disaster planning and recovery - with the events in Nepal this is certainly a relevant session.

GlosGeog’s next virtual speaker session, aimed at Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 students and their teachers, will be given by Mark Giffard-Lindsay of Global Action on Thursday 24th September 2026, from 2.00 pm to 3.15 pm. Further details can be found below.

Emma Espley has also managed to secure Tim Marshall as a speaker at an event in October. Details are here:

The third of three Emma Espley mentions is the latest in her Primary Geography Subject Leader Network (PGSLN) meetings. These will be organised slightly differently this academic year since Gloucestershire County Council is streamlining its actions due to financial necessity.

Rather than leaving individuals in the lurch, Emma hopes to work with local Teaching School Hubs, the Gloucestershire Research School and universities to offer a programme of six meetings, one per term, and alternating between virtual and in situ in format.

These will link to key educational conversations and issues, as well as developments around the new National Curriculum.

The first event is scheduled for the morning of Wednesday 30th September 2026 and will relay the latest messages about the new National Curriculum, as well as exploring two ‘golden threads’, namely green skills and GIS/digital mapping with input from two hugely knowledgeable guests, Emma Meredith of My Environment My Future and Brendan Conway from Notre Dame School.

Further details can be found here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/primary-geography-subject-leader-network-pgsln-meeting-tickets-1998945324275

The well known Hazards Conference is being held again in London and Manchester in November with a good range of speakers chaired by Kate Stockings (taking over from Sue Warn).

Details here.

In December, I’m doing an event with the legendary Matt Podbury for teachers of the Cambridge iGCSE Geography course. I was co-author and series editor of a book series for Collins for this course. Check it out.

For more details about the events, contact Matt at: support@geographypods.com.

Ahead of that, Matt is running this course on the 12th of September with Jonathan Butcher and other courses in association with Richard Allaway.

January 2027 will see the next GTE Conference. It is being hosted by the University of Bristol this time round.

(Venue: Sloane Robinson Building, University of Bristol, Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, Cattle Market Road, Bristol, BS1 6AZ)

The Geography Teacher Educators (GTE) Conference is being held at University of Bristol from the afternoon of Friday 29th - Sunday 31st Jan 2027 at lunchtime.

This is an in-person conference, so provides the opportunity for attendees to network and discuss ideas but does not include accommodation or the evening meals. The aim is to share best practice ideas and current research being done in geography education including masters level and other initiatives and project work, relevant to training geography teachers.

Booking deadline: Thurs 10th Dec 26 (although early submissions welcome)

The Sign up form is here.

Finally…

Scottish Association of Geography Teachers (SAGT) Conference

To finish, the SAGT conference is moving to Glasgow this year.

Tickets are now on sale!

Venue:

St Andrew’s RC Secondary School, G32 6QE

Date: Saturday 7th November 2026

The theme this year is ‘Regenerating Place and Reimagining Practice in Urban Spaces’

Purchase your tickets here on Eventbrite https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1991417076082...

If in Scotland, please ask your school to purchase this ticket through the school CLPL budget in the first instance. If someone is purchasing the ticket on your behalf - please make sure they are inputting YOUR name and email address. The email you give will be sent information on how to select your seminar/workshops for the day!

£10 Student Teachers & Probationers

£30 SAGT Members

£50 Non Members

I first attended this conference in 2005 and attended and presented at most conferences between then and around 2021, since when it has clashed with Iceland trips sadly. It’s a great one-day event and a great excuse to have a weekend in Glasgow.

Best of luck to Rob Chambers for his new consultancy business. You can find all the details on his new website if you have need of his services. He’s also listed on the RGS’s register of consultants along with some other fine folk.

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Icons can be obtained from here.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

The long (very) hot summer is sadly coming to an end - although I won’t miss the heat. I’ve still got a few more days, and plan to make the most of them.

Posts

• Just after I published the last issue, the Food Foundation released a report exploring the resilience of the UK to keep providing our ‘five a day’ given the heatwaves we have had this summer - not just in the UK but across Europe - and severe weather in other parts of the world. The plan seems to be that we just buy food from other countries rather than grow it ourself. This assumes they will want to do that at the same price, and that they will have sufficient food to continue to do that, despite the heat stress they are under.

Five of the UK’s nine most-purchased fruits can be grown domestically – including apples, strawberries, blueberries, raspberries and pears – but the UK grows less than 40% of domestic consumption for four of those.

For vegetables, only carrots reach a high level of self-sufficiency (94%), while the UK could grow more of the vegetables most popular with British consumers, including tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers, cucumbers, onions, broccoli and green beans, where only about half are produced domestically.

We currently import 80% of our fruit and 47% of our veg and the worsening climate and nature crisis globally means this reliance on imports poses a growing threat to our food and nutrition security.

I added a number of posts to my Passed the point of no return blog.

• I added Alexandre Bogachev’s outstanding Eclipse Atlas to my Google Earth User Guide blog (which is over 20 years old). The blog started out just exploring Google Earth related news, but expanded into ArcGIS Online, ESRI StoryMaps and other map related news. I’ve drawn heavily on Keir Clarke’s Google Maps Mania over the years.

• On my Fieldnotes from Iceland blog (which has been running for a while now and is connected to my work with Rayburn Tours) I shared details of the referendum that is going to be held in a few days time on Iceland reopening negotiations about joining the EU. The current geopolitical situation in the area makes this an interesting moment in time.

• Earlier in the summer, the Mayor of London’s office released a report called ‘Heat Ready London’ which explored some of the ways that London could be adapted to be ready for heatwaves… and then we had the most prolonged set of heatwaves and extreme temperatures, plus drought conditions that we have ever had.

  

This is accompanied by a Technical Report, and a Cooling Roadmap - both of which were released this week.

• Best wishes to all those taking part in the RGS Annual Conference next week. It always coincides with the start of term, so I can’t make it this year.

• I published a Substack about Grayson Perry’s House for Essex.

• My Environment, My Future.

As we start thinking (reluctantly) about the new school year, a reminder about the resources that are freely available on this website.

My Environment My Future (MEMF)generates awareness of career opportunities through the core geography curriculum and has been designed not to demand any extra time, resources or money from teachers or schools.

The Built Environment is the third largest sector in the UK, employing 10% of the workforce, yet young people, teachers and parents are unaware of the wide range of exciting, rewarding and future proof careers available.

There are some updated materials here - you will need to sign in to the website to access some of them. This is free.

• The BBC Domesday Discs were launched in 1986 and the Museum of Computing History is inviting people to share their memories. As I’ve blogged before, I had access to the system in my department and was filmed using them for some reason - I wonder if the footage is anywhere? I also have copies of the Community Disc and the EcoDisc, which were based on Slapton Ley nature reserve.

  

News

Just a few days left to do two important things:

1. Propose a session / field visit / teacher to teacher session for the 2027 GA Conference - Fiona Sheriff’s theme is Passionate about Geography - the venue will be Sheffield College.

2. Submit your thoughts on the proposed subject content for the GCSE Natural History. I’ve submitted mine as an individual, and the RGS will also be making a submission.

The start of the new academic year will finally see the emergence of the next phase of the new Geography curriculum for England - hopefully... or will we be waiting until 2027?

We have been waiting a while for this. Last week the Government released a research briefing on Arts and cultural education. It included this text:

The government has confirmed that it will publish a revised national curriculum in 2027, for first teaching in 2028.

The page on the House of Commons Library included this text:

Provisions in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 will mean that in future, academies and free schools will also have to follow the national curriculum.
Independent fee-paying schools do not have to follow the national curriculum.

Mark Enser shared three posts connected with the release of this year’s GCSE results on his Teaching it Real Substack.

Teaching It Real

Writing about teaching, learning and the wide world of education.

By Mark Enser

Projects

I’ve been working on outputs for the EMO-GI project during the last week and also helping to finalise the RGS’s response to the consultation on the GCSE Natural History.

I also posted my (current) Desert Island Discs on my World of Music blog. I’d be grateful if you could share yours using the Google Form at the end of the post linked to above - don’t worry if you can’t think of eight pieces of music, three or four will be fine. I will share a collection of the entries into the Google Form later in the year. Thanks to the person who has already filled in the form. Here’s the album covers from which my 8 tracks were taken.

I also worked on edits and proof reading for the Bloomsbury book I’ve co-edited with Alex Standish. Watch out for the front cover reveal soon.

Podcasts

A new Ask the Geographer podcast episode has been recorded with Ilan Kelman. It can be listened to on Soundcloud, or via the link above.

Books

I raced back through one of my favourite fantasy books: the very picaresque, chaotic, un-PC and scatalogical ‘The Walrus and the Warwolf’ - the 4th book in Hugh Cook’s ten-book‘Chronicles of an Age of Darkness’ series, and first published and read in 1988. China Miéville is a big fan of this book (and the series as a whole). Here’s an example of the breathless language that is crammed into over 750 pages as the story careers from one outrageous scene to the next… a description of a river

I also took delivery of ‘On a train home with the sun in my eyes’: a psychogeographical memoir of visits to Margate past and present. I visited Margate once again over the summer. I like spending time there. The book is illustrated and written by Chris Snow (Maps and Diagrams). I also bought a copy of ‘Where is This?’, accompanying a film of the same name where he tries to find a glacier he once saw on a poster, and finds it much changed.

Image: Photo of an illustration from the book - copyright: Chris Snow.

What have your holiday reads been?

I enjoyed this Substack post from Hywel Roberts too. It was inspired by a Scientific American post on stories here.

Images

A few from the last week.

Fortnum and Masons’ bee inspired facade on Piccadilly - image by Sally Parkinson

As a Leeds supporter for over 50 years - Leeds winning and Man Utd. losing on the opening day of the Premier League season was joyful - image Alan Parkinson

Santiago Calatrava’s City of Arts and Sciences, Valencia - image by E. Parkinson

Events

GeogLive! 34 is in on the subject of subject leadership.

5pm on September the 9th - get a free ticket here.

The Rivers Trust is running their next Big River Watch between the 18th and 24th of September.

Twice a year, anyone can take part in these week-long citizen science surveys that help to build an important picture of river health across the UK and Ireland. Our rivers are far from healthy. They’re polluted with sewage, plastic, chemicals and nutrients, and just 15% of river stretches in England are in good overall health.

With the Big River Watch app, you can help identify the issues, which help’s the Trust influence policymakers and hold polluters to account. After the drought of this summer, many rivers are at low levels of flow, and my local chalk stream the River Nar is running at very low levels which is not good. To take part you need to download the app, which is free

If you are teaching in Scotland, there is an opportunity to apply to be part of the new Pedagogy in Practice (PiP) professional learning programme (running from September 2026 to June 2027). Organised by Education Scotland.

The programme is designed to support practitioners to deepen their understanding of pedagogy, critically reflect on their practice, and strengthen their ability to make evidence-informed decisions that positively impact learners.

Applications close on the 4th of September. Participation is FREE as it is funded by the government.

The RMEtS and RGS have teamed up for an event exploring some possible options for those studying geography. It takes place on the 15th of September and details can be found here.

In December, I’m doing an event with the legendary Matt Podbury for teachers of the Cambridge iGCSE Geography course. I was co-author and series editor of a book series for Collins for this course. Check it out.

For more details contact Matt at: support@geographypods.com

Ahead of that, Matt is running this course on the 12th of September.

As he said on the Facebook page.

Three terms down, and two to go with our new Geography qualification. Cool as a cucumber, or is the heat well and truly on? Here in Toulouse, I’m somewhere in between with around 5 units down, and 5 to complete as well as coursework to finish off. I’ve spent year one building up a bank of 5 & 7-mark questions and have started to put together the potentially quite tricky 7-mark DME & map skills questions for use in year two.

Feel free to join me and fellow Milan-based IGCSE Geog teacher Jonathan Butcher on Saturday 12 September for 2 x 90 minute sessions focussing on where we go from here.

Full details can be found here: https://internationalgeography.training/workshops/one-year-in-igcse-0460. Attendees are given access to a Google Drive with all resources that have been created for the new course as well as a one-to-one follow up session the two weeks after the course.

Don’t forget to check out the Bloxham Sustainability Challenge too.

This aligns closely with priorities highlighted in the Department for Education's Curriculum and Assessment Review, including digital literacy, oracy, critical thinking, climate education and the effective use of digital tools across the curriculum.

For 2026–27, the new Geospatial Innovation pathway enables students to complete a Pearson Edexcel-accredited Level 3 EPQ while tackling a live planning question:

"How should the East West Railway Company redesign the Marston Vale Line to provide the most sustainable transport solution for the new Universal Studios UK development?"

Check out the PTI’s events too.

York Press are carrying out market research on new resource decisions, and there is a prize draw if you complete the survey.

In next week’s issue we’ll also be welcoming a new GA President. Well done to Catherine Owen on her year in charge. The GA Presidents blog will have a new addition.

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

I was pleased to hear that the Discover Geography series has been shortlisted for the Teach Secondary Awards 2026. The winners will be announced in November.

Icons can be obtained from here.

A House for Essex is a testament to the idea that art and architecture can lift our spirits and allow us to experience the world through the eyes of others, both in reality and fiction.

Sitting just north of the Essex village of Wrabness, down Black Boy Lane sit’s Grayson Perry’s otherworldly ‘House for Essex’.1 It is the Turner Prize-winning artist’s homage to the "single mums in Dagenham, hairdressers in Colchester, and the landscape and history of Essex".

Image: Sally Parkinson

The house is owned and managed by an organisation called Living Architecture, which is a not-for-profit organisation founded by the author / philosopher Alain de Botton.2 I have several of his books which are often on the theme of travel and quality of life e.g. ‘The Art of Travel’.3

Living Architecture was founded in 2006 with the aim to:

enhance the appreciation of modern architecture, whilst providing the opportunity for an exceptional holiday experience, in a space designed by an outstanding architectural practice.

The house sits on the banks of the River Stour in north Essex, on the site of a derelict farm house, looking across the river towards Suffolk. It is described as “uncompromising”. Other terms used to describe it include:

• “Gold-topped, tile-clad and unapologetically singular”

• “Like a storybook.”

• “architectural eccentricity at its most confident”

• “a magical building that gives two fingers to the puritanical modernist architectural establishment”

• “the gingerbread house”

Map via Digimap for Schools.

Living Architecture commissioned the artist Grayson Perry to fulfil his long-held wish to build a chapel to the history of his home county of Essex. With Charles Holland of FAT Architects, a partnership was formed to realise this dream.4 It is a building but also an art gallery and the story of an imaginary person who represents womanhood and in particular Essex women.

Image: Sally Parkinson

This COG Design feature, written by someone who stayed in the house describes the project as follows:

The central conceit is that this is a folly, a house converted by the second husband of Julie May Cope, mourning her death after she was run down by a take-away curry delivery-driver. Julie has a full backstory that resonates clearly with many modern British women.

The double-height living room is a chapel, dedicated to Julie’s memory. Huge tapestries tell the story of a life in two halves: her first marriage, to Dave, where she brought up their kids before he left her for another woman; then her emerging independence, protests at Greenham Common and a second marriage, to wealthy Rob, who loved her so much he converted their home into this folly to her memory, after she was killed in an accident with a curry delivery moped.

When the project was started, planning permission was refused due to objections from local people.5

Source: https://www.channel4.com/press/news/grayson-perrys-dream-house

In 2015, Perry shared his preliminary drawings and ideas for his shrine to Julie May Cope. The actual house closely matches these designs although the project was not easy. The house reveals itself as you move through it and there are lots of hidden doors and other surprises.

Perry and the architect Charles Holland describe the house as a Gesamtkunstwerk — a total work of art.

Rowan Moore visited the house when it first opened.6 Back then, a ballot was held and names were put in for a chance to stay in the house. It is now available for 2 night stays at any time of the year. A maximum of 4 people can stay in the house: it has 2 double bedrooms. At the bottom of each bed is a large tapestry designed (of course) by Grayson Perry, showing Julie at different times in her life. Large tapestries hang in the main room, and there are large and small ceramics. A large green tiled bath dominates the bathroom. The kitchen is basic and described as ‘vestry-chic’.

Place Making

The house is connected to local Essex identity, folklore and history. It is positioned at the confluence of rivers, as ancient shrines were. Visitors to the house will find a small booklet which tells the story of the house, and contains a long poem about Julie’s life: the fictional person at the heart of the story.

Image: Alan Parkinson

The booklet has a map of Julie’s Essex in the centre with locations central to her fictional life.

She was born in a loft on Canvey Island, during the 1953 floods, and had a conventional childhood. She married a man called Dave, had two children and lived in Basildon and South Woodham Ferrers, before an affair ended their marriage. She moved to Maldon with her children and attended university in Colchester, where she met her second husband, Rob. Julie and Rob shared a profound happiness that lasted until her sudden death at the age of 61" Julie, still wearing her council lanyard, is hit by a curry delivery motorbike. And there the story ends, except for Rob’s promise to mourn her like Shah Jahan. And so, the death of Julie is the birth of Julie’s House in Wrabness. The moped responsible for killing her is hanging from the ceiling, acting as a chandelier.

Image: Alan Parkinson

The exterior of the house is covered with around 2000 green and white decorated tiles, and there are objects along the ridge line of the roof.

Image: Alan Parkinson

Image: Sally Parkinson

Floor Plans

Source: https://www.living-architecture.co.uk/the-houses/a-house-for-essex/overview/

The BBC filmed a video tour.7

The house can be viewed from the outside. Take the train from Manningtree to Wrabness and walk down Black Boy Lane. There is a community shop and cafe in the village where cards and other items featuring the house can be purchased. Julie Cope’s grave stone sits just outside of the house.

The house is radically different from the traditional architecture of nearby Wrabness village, and stands as a confident, joyful addition — “a reminder that Essex has always been a place of invention, contradiction and creativity.8

A widely used quote, apparently originally written in the New York Times, is:

“If Kent is the garden of England, Dungeness is the back gate.”

I’ve been reflecting on a trip I made to Dungeness earlier in the summer as part of a Kent road trip with my son.

This is a remarkable place, and most unlike anywhere else in the UK.

It’s a landform called a cuspate (‘tooth shaped’) foreland which has accreted over many years in a series of ridges, which were visible from the top of the Old Lighthouse which I climbed. I thought that it could make a great case study for ecosystems in geography, or the new GCSE Natural History1 Here is the first draft of some thoughts in that area.

Image: Sea Kale and the new lighthouse, Dungeness, Kent - Alan Parkinson

Dungeness is one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe, and is home to a huge range of plants - many of which are adapted to the particular ecosystem and microclimate that has developed. Dungeness sits on the south coast of Kent, with Camber and Camber Sands just to the west, and forms the southern most part of Romney Marsh. Ashford lies to the north. Folkestone and Dover lie to the North East, and the famous White Cliffs can be viewed from across the headland. To the south lies the English Channel. It has frequently been described2 as “Britain’s only desert'“ but it isn’t one. It sits on the flightpath for many flights out of the UK towards southern Europe, and I have flown over it several times. Its shape is identifiable from the air.

Source: Digimap for Schools / EDINA / Ordnance Survey

The Romans created sea defences, at Dymchurch and the Rhee Wall, which stretches from Appledore to Romney to help stabilise the feature. EU funding has since helped finance a multi-million pound sea wall at Dymchurch and beyond, because the whole feature is very low-lying. The shingle is pushed along from the north, and the west, and built out.

The road onto the Dungeness Estate is a dead end - serving the former nuclear power stations.

Physical features

Dungeness consists of over 500 gravel beaches, made largely from ice age flints, which have accumulated since the mid-Holocene period. The gravel areas are interspersed with marsh sediment. This contrast and the curving features can be seen in the image below.

Image: View from the top of the Old Lighthouse - Alan Parkinson

Shingle ridges are found across Dungeness. There are also shingle beaches that shelve steeply down. These are popular with sea anglers and littered with remnants of crabs.

Common and grey seals can often be seen offshore along with harbour porpoise and dolphins at times.

Natural History: flora and fauna

“Dungeness, a strange land of extremes, one of the most valuable and yet vulnerable nature conservation sites in Great Britain”

Firth, 1984

Dungeness is a National Nature Reserve3 It is home to 600 species of plants which is a third of all plants found in the UK. Many plants found on Dungeness are those that thrive amongst the salty pebbles with little or no soil and seed freely such as sea kale, Viper’s bugloss, and the everlasting sweet pea. Any soil is thin and lacking in nutrients and also has high salt levels, meaning halophytic plants can thrive here. The area is also a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and a Ramsar site (a wetland of international importance). The Ramsar designation says:

Dungeness and Rye Harbour comprise the largest cuspate foreland (a low-lying triangular foreland) in Britain and form part of a system of shingle barrier beaches that can be traced 40 km from Fairlight in East Sussex to Hythe in Kent. This is ideal habitat for annual vegetation of drift lines, which occurs on naturally functioning shingle beaches. It is one of the scarcest habitats in the UK.

The area also has an RPSB reserve.4 Kent Wildlife Trust also operates in the area.5

The RSPB’s description of the area identifies some key species which live here, or visit at certain times of year.

The Dungeness reserve is set back from the sea, boasting mile after mile of open shingle, freshwater pits, wet grassland and stunning wildflower meadows. We look after the reserve’s wet and dry grasslands to create good breeding conditions for Lapwings, Redshanks and Garganeys, as well as two uncommon bumblebee species – the Brown-banded Carder Bee and Red-shanked Carder Bee.

Watch the sky in spring and autumn for hundreds of Swallows, Swifts and martins feeding over Burrowes pit. Listen for the booming of our Bitterns and the unmistakable call of the Cuckoo. In the summer, the meadows are a riot of colourful wildflowers which attract nectar-loving pollinators like bees and butterflies.

It is always a joy to watch the Hobbies performing their acrobatic displays over the reserve as they hunt insects during the summer months. In the autumn, many different species of waders will stop to feed here in their hundreds before migrating elsewhere for the winter. Other migrating birds such as Whinchats, Redstarts, Wheatears and Ring Ouzels, will all be present in varying numbers.

Winter sees large numbers of Wigeons, Gadwalls, Teals, Shovelers, Pochards, Tufted Ducks, Goldeneyes and Pintails. Bewick’s and Whooper Swans are also a species highlight seen around the reserve at this time. Other birds such as Goldcrests, Firecrests, Goldfinches, Robins and Fieldfares can be spotted when they overwinter here.

Dungeness would make a useful case study and possible fieldwork location for those intending to teach the new GCSE Natural History qualification from 2028.

The RAMSAR designation also describes some of the flora and fauna to be found:

Bryophytes

The bryophyte flora includes an assemblage of wetland thread-mosses Bryum species. These mosses are colonists of unshaded calcareous sand that must be persistently damp all year but not inundated by standing water. They occur on wet sand beside large freshwater gravel pits and small pools in Dungeness RSPB Reserve.

Vascular plants

Saltmarshes and other brackish wetlands are particularly rich, with at least eight nationally scarce species, including the vulnerable sea barley Hordeum marinum, Borrer’s saltmarsh-grass Puccinellia fasciculata and slender hare’s-ear Bupleurum tenuissimum, and the near-threatened sea-heath Frankenia laevis. Grazing marshes support the nationally rare (and critically endangered) sharp-leaved pondweed Potamogeton acutifolius and at least six nationally scarce species, including the vulnerable divided sedge Carex divisa and rootless duckweed Wolffia arrhiza. The remaining species are chiefly associated with gravel pits and their margins, saline lagoons, shingle beaches and fens.

Invertebrates

The freshwater wetlands (with the exception of the deep, cold and largely sterile open waters of the main gravel pits) exhibit a number of similar characteristics. Shallow open water and emergent vegetation, largely comprising common reed Phragmites australis and bulrush Typha latifolia, supports a rich water beetle assemblage. Other noteworthy aspects of the invertebrate assemblage include a suite of reed beetles Donacia, snail-killing flies (Sciomyzidae) and soldierflies (Stratiomyidae) that are typical of coastal marshes.

The saline and brackish gradients of the saltmarsh, saline lagoons, brackish ditches and damp brackish hollows in the shingle beaches also share many characteristics in terms of the habitats they provide for invertebrates.

Dungeness is also of interest to geologists.

Dungeness is a large, complex and geomorphologically important site, first because of the shingle ridges, and second for the shingle foreland. Beach ridges such as those found at Dungeness are not confined only to cuspate forelands, shingle ridges with recurved distal ends being found at many scales around the British Isles (for example, Blakeney Point in Norfolk).

Image: Shingle beach with flint shingle evident - Alan Parkinson

The shingle is almost entirely (over 98%) rounded flint shingle with pebbles of cherry sandstones derived from the Upper Greensand, fine-grained sandstones from the Hastings Beds, and red, grey and liver-coloured quartzites, including examples of the Triassic Budleigh Salterton Pebble Beds. Some of the latter may have been brought here as ballast.

The shingle ridges are known as “fulls” and the low lying areas between them are known as “lows” or “swales”. The heights of the ridges vary between 3.7 m and 6.3 m above sea level.

Research was carried out in this area by several former GA Presidents including J A Steers and W V G Balchin.

The swales can provide some shelter from the persistent wind for low-lying plants.

Human features of interest

Prospect Cottage

Image: Prospect Cottage - Alan Parkinson

This was the former home of the film director Derek Jarman. He found peace here, moving to Dungeness in 1994, and retreated here after an AIDS diagnosis, and created a garden in the shingle. Planting sits in amongst beach flotsam and jetsam: driftwood and rusted metal.

Image: Prospect Cottage - Alan Parkinson

Jarman is buried in nearby Old Romney churchyard, near to a 500+ year old yew tree.

The Pilot Inn

An excellent locally-run pub which serves outstanding fish and chips and their very own Pilot Ale. The car park has a number of interesting artefacts including the propellor from a B17 which crashed off the coast during World War II and was found by a local trawler.

Another pub called The Britannia sits near the Old Lighthouse and railway station.

The Old Lighthouse

Opened in 1904 and in operation for over 50 years. Built of sandstone and over 45m tall it offers a grand view of Dungeness. Adult ticket to climb was £5.00 in the summer of 2026, with children £4.00. A small shop sells souvenirs. The last section is a steep ladder, and access to the viewing platform is through a hole in the metal wall.

Image: The Old Lighthouse - Alan Parkinson

Next to it is the base of the original lighthouse: a round structure which provided accommodation for the lighthouse keepers.

The New Lighthouse

This stripy tower also houses the fog signal. See image at the start of this Substack post.

Navigation markers

Two structures are erected on the beach – one has a diamond shape and the other a ‘T’, seen to the east of the power station. Fishing boat crews would line the ‘T’ up in the diamond and head straight for home knowing they were on the safest line.

Image: the T-shaped navigation marker - Alan Parkinson

Dungeness is also the ‘end of the line’ for the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway which claims to be the worlds smallest public railway, having a gauge of just 15 inches. The station has the End of the Line restaurant.

Dungeness Nuclear Power Stations

There are two non-operational nuclear power stations on the headland: A and B. These are in the process of being decomissioned.

Image: Nuclear Power Station and associated infrastructure - Alan Parkinson

Acoustic Mirrors

The RSPB description of its reserve mentions some wartime structures:

Lade Pits is a unique site for history as well as wildlife, as it contains three Scheduled Ancient Monuments, which are of international significance. The Denge Sound Mirrors (also known as the Acoustic Mirrors or Listening Ears) are three concrete structures which range in size from 20 to 200 feet. They were built between 1928 and 1935 as part of Britain’s national defence strategy. The Sound Mirrors are open to the public during organised events.

Another wartime structure is available as a holiday let.

Image: Bloom Stays.

References

Dungeness website: https://dungeness.org.uk/

Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness

A Flickr album of images I took on my visit: https://flickr.com/photos/geographypages/albums/72177720335088370/

The Dungeness Estate was put up for sale for £1.5million in 2015.

Some other Substack posts on Dungeness:

Poetry

Luciana’s Substack

Dungeness

It was the link…

Read more

2 months ago · 4 likes · Luciana Francis

Photography

Spirit of Place

The Shifting Tides of Dungeness

Read more

a year ago · 86 likes · 76 comments · Lin Gregory

Dungeness was primarily a fishing community, with boats launched directly from the beach and pulled back in by hand at the end of a day’s fishing. In the late 1920’s miniature railway tracks were laid from the boats and up the beach to the fisherman’s cottages at the top of the shingle, so that their fishing hauls could be transferred to awaiting transport. These tracks fell into disuse when a road was built in the late 1930’s. At the same time, the old way of dragging the boats ashore by the fisherman’s families was replaced by winches and then engines.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• a few interesting job opportunities this week too

• events that you might be interested in

I’ve had some time at home this last week after a period of travelling and various adventures from the SW and back to the SW. We also had the fifth heatwave in this record-breaking summer of heat - and a continuing drought. ‘A’ level results came out last week. We had some very good results in my own school. Congratulations to all of those receiving results and to all those who supported them. GCSE to come tomorrow, along with other qualifications.

On Friday night, while watching Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Fisher King’ my phone started making a loud noise, and I received an emergency alert… closely followed by a second.

My wife was watching Mamma Mia at a theatre in London and said that the alerts disrupted the performance. There’s been some discussion over the use of the system for this purpose, but as I mention later in the newsletter it was entirely justified. However, Nicola Jennings also pointed out an obvious dissonance in the real ‘problem’.

Illustration: Nicola Jennings - The Guardian - 16th August 2026

Posts

Not many of these again as I’m still on summer holiday.

A widely used quote, apparently originally written in the New York Times, is:

“If Kent is the garden of England, Dungeness is the back gate.”

• I’ve been reflecting on a trip I made to Dungeness last week. This is a remarkable place, and unlike most other locations in the UK. It is one of the largest expanses of shingle in Europe, and is home to a huge range of plants. The cuspate foreland has accreted over many years in a series of ridges, which were visible from the top of the Old Lighthouse which I climbed. It would make a great case study for ecosystems in geography, or the new GCSE Natural History I reckon. I’ve started putting a few notes together so watch this space.

Image: Sea Kale and the new lighthouse, Dungeness, Kent - Alan Parkinson

• I posted about a new film made by The Crown Estate, called Sea, Land and City and made available to view on Waterbear. The Crown Estate own much of the coastline of the country: a huge portfolio of properties and investments.

• I added a post linked with David Shukman’s book on wildfire risks as we saw a temporary ban on portable BBQs and huge fires in Croatia and Belgium.

Firemap Live website. Very active this week.

There was also a piece in The Conversation by Doug Specht on the term ‘wildfires’ and what impression it gives about the origin of the fires.

News

The eclipse and the heat were the main topics: the sun at the centre of both. There’s a potential case study there about eclipse tourism and its impacts. Iceland saw a surge in visitors as did Spain. The next total eclipse is August 2027 and this is the path if you want to book ahead.

There was also a by-election result.

The Observer had a long read on the River Danube. Lorenzo Tondo travelled 100 miles along a river which had dropped to its lowest ever levels.

The low flow had exposed sunken Nazi ships from World War II.

It mentions the “rock of starvation” (Ínség-szikla) which has been revealed. It has emerged previously, but not the whole rock, as happened this summer.

There’s also some discussion over how much rain needs to fall before the drought is over, and to refill aquifers and other stores ahead of next summer.

Projects

I posted the 500th post on my World of Music blog. A reminder that unlike my others, I’m happy to receive guest posts based on your own musical / geographical memories. It would be great to receive your Desert Island Discs for example. I will share mine towards the end of the year when I start summing up the year of musical blogging. The Spotify playlist which features all the music I mention on the blog has also now reached past 700 tracks.

Not too many projects on the go at the moment, other than ticking away on some EMO-GI work

The effects of extreme heat across Europe over this (ongoing) Summer of 2026 make this work even more urgent. Wildfires, record low river levels, energy crises, food security crises and derailed trains. This has led to a series of posts on my Passed the point of no return blog.

Books

I added to my growing library of Icelandic books and maps in Canterbury with a Hakluyt Society reprint of an 1810 visit to Iceland by Henry Holland purchased from the Chaucer Bookshop. I’ve also been re-reading Richard King’s excellent ‘A Lark Ascending’ too and using it to add some posts to my World of Music blog.

Ed Conway published a new Substack post on his Material World substack.

Material World

The Radio, the Submarine and the Tariffs

This is one of a series of posts providing a little background to my forthcoming book, Trade World. If it whets your appetite, please do pre-order a copy. And if you do so between now and Sept 2 you can even get exclusive access to a free bonus essay…

Read more

17 days ago · 56 likes · 8 comments · Ed Conway

This includes a series of posts linked to his forthcoming book ‘Trade World’ (out in early September and on pre-order). It included several useful quotes for units on consumption / globalisation and industry:

“Even now, with our years of experience and the enormous might of technology we have at our disposal, still no-one is entirely sure where a product is actually made. As you will see in Trade World invariably what appears on the label of an item you buy in the shops tells you next to nothing about its real backstory- about the journey it has taken to get to you, about the transformations it has undergone along the way and the people who have transported it.”

There’s also been plenty on food security issues. We rely on heat-stressed countries for our food.

This Substack post outlines the early arrival of serious issues.

We’ve been kicking the can down the road for too long.

Climate Uncovered

Hunger At The 2°C Dinner Table

I am delighted to be joined by Mark Roberts from 4Hunger.org for this article. Mark has a long and distinguished career as an environmental lawyer, international climate and anti-deforestation advocate. His recent focus is on hunger and aid policy. I highly recommend his Substack and hope you subscribe for more of his highly insightful and relevant cont…

Read more

15 days ago · 1 like · Tom Harris and Mark Roberts

Images

A few more images from my travels over the last week or so since my scheduled issue #84. The first two are from my wife.

Grayson Perry’s ‘A House for Essex’ - image by Sally Parkinson - more to come on this place in a future post.

View from Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat restaurant, Bishopgate - image by Sally Parkinson

Other images by me and shared on Flickr.

Dungeness, Kent - seen from the lighthouse, with Folkstone and Dover in the distance.

Canterbury Cathedral - memorial to Thomas Becket

Friends Garden, Canterbury Cathedral precinct

English Channel off the coast of Dungeness, Kent

Job Vacancies

A few job opportunities here. The first one is at the RGS. Deadline for applications is in September.

The other one is a little more urgent if you want to apply as you have a couple of days. It’s a lecturing role in the Education Department at the University of Oxford and you will be teaching on the PGCE course at the University and also on an MSc Learning and Teaching Programme. This is the sort of role I always had in mind to try to do at some point, but I think it’s a little late now.

Details here and good luck to those who apply.

There’s also an Education Team Leader role available at FSC Nettlecombe Court and another at Preston Montford.

Events

See recent issues of the newsletter for some events to start the year off well. Remember to subscribe to the newsletter so that you receive them all into your email.

I’m going to be doing a keynote at the Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase - held at the University of Southampton in early September.

RGS Schools Membership is now half price - just £50 a year. There is a Schools Member lecture at the end of September.

The Slapton Sands barrier system in Start Bay, with its associated back-barrier lagoon Slapton Ley, is an iconic coastal landscape feature.

The system is of significant importance from a socio-economic and biodiversity, with the gravel barrier providing protection from flooding as well as from saline intrusion of the freshwater Ley. The barrier system is also highly dynamic and the combination of sea-level rise, longshore redistribution of sediment and direct storm impacts has led to a number of very damaging impacts and costly interventions over the past 25 years.

The January/February 2026 storms have led to the partial collapse of the seawall protecting the village of Torcross and the main road running across the barrier. Serious questions now need to be asked whether it is sensible to repair the damage or instigate managed retreat. Professor Gerd Masselink has studied the processes along the Slapton Sands barrier since 2004 and has gained a deep understanding of the processes governing its dynamics. Using a combination of observational data and numerical modelling,

Primary teacher and new(ish) to Digimaps? Want to use it in your fieldwork?

There’s a free GA course in November to suit your needs, led by Darren Bailey.

Digimaps / EDINA also run a series of training events through the year.

In December, I’m doing an event with the legendary Matt Podbury for teachers of the Cambridge iGCSE Geography course. I was co-author and series editor of a book series for Collins for this course.

For more details contact Matt at: support@geographypods.com

Ahead of that, Matt is running this course on the 12th of September.

As he said on the Facebook page.

Three terms down, and two to go with our new Geography qualification. Cool as a cucumber, or is the heat well and truly on? Here in Toulouse, I’m somewhere in between with around 5 units down, and 5 to complete as well as coursework to finish off. I’ve spent year one building up a bank of 5 & 7-mark questions and have started to put together the potentially quite tricky 7-mark DME & map skills questions for use in year two.

Feel free to join me and fellow Milan-based IGCSE Geog teacher Jonathan Butcher on Saturday 12 September for 2 x 90 minute sessions focussing on where we go from here.

Full details can be found here: https://internationalgeography.training/workshops/one-year-in-igcse-0460. Attendees are given access to a Google Drive with all resources that have been created for the new course as well as a one-to-one follow up session the two weeks after the course.

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Icons can be obtained from here.

"Ko au Te Taiao, ko Te Taiao ko au"*

I’ve been taking a look at the Aotearoa NZ Geography Curriculum.

Several key ideas in the curriculum come from the Māori perspective on the world. In this, it mirrors some of the terms that are included in the Welsh geography curriculum: terms such as cynefin and hiraeth. I incorporated this into my own Year 7 curriculum materials to investigate ideas of belonging to place.

One key idea is Te taiao.

Te taiao is the space you stand in or observe. Features of te taiao are interconnected, including people who live within the space. They also include those made by people, such as buildings, and natural features, such as mountains and climates.

It involves the interconnection of locations with four other ideas, shown on the diagram below:

Image source: https://www.taiaoora.nz/te-taiao

A geography glossary is available which includes some key terminology.

Students (ākonga) should also be taught about Kaitiakitanga (stewardship for living things and resources), as well as Manaakitanga (the process of showing respect and care; reciprocity between people, living things, and places.)

The subject’s learning outcomes state that:

All learning should connect with students’ lives in Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific. Teachers or students usually select the contexts. As such, contexts are not always specified in the Subject Learning Outcomes. Examples may be provided to illustrate topics and contexts, but they are not prescriptive.

Professor John Morgan lives and works in Auckland and wrote a useful piece back in 2023, reflecting on flooding. He used a term coined by David Matless to describe images which show that we are in a new epoch: the Anthropocene. This is creating images which could be described as ‘Anthropscenes’. The scale of the fires near Madrid and the scorched landscape they left behind in July - the first of many this year - could be examples of these. Here’s the Madrid fires with London shown to scale…

Source: BBC News.

The glossary also describes a practice called talanoa.

Talanoa is widely seen as having a conversation or sharing ideas. This includes sharing through storytelling. It can be formal or informal and is almost always carried out face to face. Talanoa is a form of dialogue that brings people together to share views without the need to agree on everything.

There are plenty of potential sources of inspiration for such discussions and shared storytelling: experiences of travel over the summer, family stories of response to landscape change - from the loss of a nearby field to a solar farm, the loss of a beloved tree to disease, a new housing estate or data centre being proposed etc.

Sample Course Outlines are provided. These are intended to help teachers and schools understand the new NCEA Learning Matrix and Achievement Standards. Examples of how a year-long Geography course could be constructed using the new Learning Matrix and Achievement Standards. They are indicative only and do not mandate any particular context or approach.

The suggested course outlines from Level 1 show the importance of locating New Zealand and then comparing it with somewhere larger: Brazil and smaller: Fiji with mapping early on.

Outline 2 starts by exploring the sense of place.

There is a lot of respect for indigenous knowledges and those who have gone before.

Within it there are some traditional topics: settlement, volcanic processes, migration etc but room for these to be approached in different ways.

I look forward to digging a little deeper into this document to inform some curriculum thinking and refreshing my Year 7 topic on geographies of HOME, which has already been influenced by the Curriculum for Wales focus on cynefin.

“I am nature and nature is me*

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

Back from Devon after a lovely week by the Exe and am now scheduled to be in Kent today - visiting Dungeness and Canterbury - so this post is a scheduled one. It was also really great to catch up with two geography legends: Dan Raven Ellison and Ian Cook while I was down in Devon. Sadly the swifts have departed and hopefully will be back next year. They bring such joy through the summer months screaming around the village and nesting in the eaves.

Posts

Not so many of these as I’ve been away for most of the week.

• Seascape, like landscape is about the relationship between people and place and the part it plays in forming the setting to our everyday lives. Seascape results from the way that the different components of our environment – both natural and cultural - interact together and are understood and experienced by people.

Seascape is defined by Natural England in its position statement on All Landscapes Matter (2010) as:

“An area of sea, coastline and land, as perceived by people, whose character results from the actions and interactions of land with sea, by natural and/or human factors”.

This would make a useful context to introduce a coastal unit.

Image: Donkey rides on Hunstanton Beach, Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

What seascapes are you visiting over the summer? Let me know.

• The GA shared some statistics from a YouGov poll on climate change and geography.

• I passed one million page views on my Cultural Geography blog, which is called Cultcha. This was started back in August 2007, so it’s one of my older blogs now. It broadly covers content linked to culture and cultural geography: books, music, art, cinema, social history, cities and anything else that takes my fancy.

  

News

Some stories on how countries have been coping (or otherwise) with the heat and the accomanying wildfires, the most heartbreaking of which was at Dunwich Heath. I’m a regular visitor to Southwold and RSPB Minsmere is right on the doorstep. A reminder of the Fire Emissions Watch website and some thoughts on the name ‘wildfires’.

Italy’s changes to timings of opening hours and other things.

The Norfolk and Suffolk football leagues are having to be delayed due to dangerously hard pitches.

Is this the summer when the penny drops?

I would like to have been in the Westfjords of Iceland today for the total solar eclipse that will be experienced there. Vigur Island would have been particularly good.

This evening, a partial eclipse will be seen across the UK. Here’s the details:

Don’t forget to use an appropriate safe way to view the eclipse….

Projects

Not much project work other than completing SGQM moderation reports.

Books

I’ve been reading ‘Upland’ by Ed Douglas while in Devon and it’s excellent. I also picked up another book by Fitzcarraldo Editions, which are always interesting.

I also read a Substack post from the Encounter Edu feed of Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop. I worked on a few things with him back in the day. We won a GA Award for a project called Frozen Oceans, One of the other people who worked on that was Professor Ceri Lewis from the University of Exeter. She gave the oration ahead of Jamie receiving an Honorary Doctorate last year. It was also strange to see a beardless Jamie!

I’m looking forward to getting stuck into this book - made available as a free download from the LSE Press. Ron Johnston continues to inspire geographers, and gets a mention in a new book that I’ve also been proof-reading this week:

Looks good!

Images

Some images from my travels in the last week or so.

Sidmouth Beach - the cliffs regularly have rock falls (there was one last Friday further along).

Exmouth beach, looking towards Teignmouth

Exe sunset

Sign - Exmouth sea front

Undercliff path closure in Sidmouth - we usually walk this way past Jacob’s Ladder (also closed)

All images by Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

Events

Kate Stockings is running a course for the GA in October. Details and booking link are here.

This course will run as a half day online (pm), 12.00 – 16.00, with refreshment breaks

Part 1: Why is geographical enquiry our signature pedagogy?

- What is geographical enquiry?

- What is disciplinary knowledge?

- What is the link between geographical enquiry and disciplinary knowledge?

- How does geographical enquiry help develop great geographers?

Part 2: What does geographical enquiry look like in the knowledge-rich age?

Part 3: What does it mean to do geographical enquiry in the classroom and with fieldwork?

Encounter Edu have organised a live lesson link up in September with Steve Backshall as part of Ocean Live. The live lesson is on Tuesday 22 September, and will be pitched for ages 7-11, with all welcome to join.

We’re thrilled to launch an exciting new live lesson series, Ocean Live with Steve Backshall. Engaging young people with our ocean is one of the things Steve cares about most, and this series marks the start of a brand-new partnership with Nekton, an incredible ocean exploration charity using the latest technology to understand and protect our seas.

Join us live from The Deep on 22 September, as primary schools across the world tune in for the first broadcast.

Live from DEEP Campus, the UK’s leading underwater training and innovation centre, Steve will explore the cutting-edge technology opening up new frontiers in ocean exploration, and speak to the science team behind some incredible new species discoveries. Expect live quizzes and interaction, segments on tech, exploration and discovery, and a full set of classroom resources and activities to extend the learning long after the broadcast ends. This live lesson will also be broadcast on Children United.

Further details to be confirmed over the summer.

I received my copy of the RGS Bulletin and Eastern region newsletter.

I’ve already booked to see Borge Ousland, Fritz Lanting and Michael Palin.

Nicholas Crane is doing a series of events around the country, including a talk in King’s Lynn at the Town Hall in support of his recent book on UK footpaths and tracks.

Your best option if you live in the East of England is to come along to our Christmas social event on Tuesday the 8th of December.

It will be hosted by Norwich School. Nick is our guest.

Nick will have a focus on the ancient footpaths of East Anglia as well, given the location of the talk, and the fact he was born in Cringleford - a few miles from where my daughter lives - and grew up in the area.

My ticket is booked, so I will see you there and may even help you get some sausage rolls and brownies once the talk is over. We usually have mulled wine on arrival as well...

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

We’ve had the 4th heatwave of the summer - which has been another prolonged one - and are still waiting for rain in many parts of the country. The much-reduced harvest has already been done in most of the fields around my Norfolk village; food prices will inevitably rise. I’ve been down in Devon since Friday, and had an overnight in Bristol on Thursday. The weather has been very warm and dry, but much cooler than over in the East thankfully.

Posts

• A public consultation is currently open for the next London Plan. The existing one was published in 2021, and they are reviewed every five years. It would be worth those teaching in London taking a look and getting involved in the consultation period which ends in October.

• Brendan Conway has completed one of his holiday projects, and launched his own Substack. He started by looking back to the FIFA World Cup Final in 1966, which took place on the 30th of July. It includes plenty of musical and other connections, linking to my World of Music blog’s theme. Check out his new Tidal app which can visualise the ebb and flow of a sports fixture.

  Navigatio

  1966 and all that...geography

  Read more

  a month ago · Navigatio

• I shared some information on the response to the GCSE Natural History GCSE.

Kit Marie Rackley has shared their position on this as well and it is worth reading.

Kit Marie Rackley’s Coffee and Geography podcast is always worth a listen, but the latest issue with Cyrus Golding covers a lot of ground. It can be listened to here.

News

The newspapers were full of stories of climate change, although not mentioning that particular term as much as they should be. Will this be the summer when the penny drops or are we still just in ‘it’s summer, it’s always hot’ denial phase.

Ben Jennings cartoon used in the i Newspaper.

There was also sad news of the passing of a group of mountaineers on Broad Peak in Pakistan. The group included the mountaineer Nirmal ‘Nims’ Purja. I supported his previous Project Possible effort to climb the 8000m peaks in the fastest time and he took the viral photo of the queue in the Death Zone attempting to reach the summit of Everest.

There’s a quote about climate change which says that it will be viewed on mobile phone footage which gets increasingly close to home, until you are the one filming it…Dunwich Heath in Suffolk has been devastated, and RSPB’s Minsmere reserve has had to remain closed. My daughter was at Latitude Festival last week, which is just a few miles away… and I’ve visited regularly.

I drive near Shouldham Warren on the way to work too, and that has also been ablaze in the last few days.

Australia makes use of indigenous knowledges to help prevent and manage their bushfires.

There was a story about criticism of temporary ‘rebranding’ of the Peak District National Park.

Image: BBC News.

Projects

Not much work on these this week other than some thinking time. Also proofs arrived of a book that is coming out in 2027.

Books

I made a start on Ed Douglas’ ‘Upland’. He describes the importance of mountains. It starts in familiar territory with the area of Sheffield around Abbeydale and up to Beauchief (I used to play golf on the course there that he mentions). He starts with an excellent explanation of mountain formation, geology and orogeny, with some excellent descriptions, analogies and facts e.g. the lithosphere only makes up 1% of the Earth’s total mass.

Images

Here are some of my images from the last week.

Sunset over the Exe in Topsham

Wallace and Gromit exhibition at the MShed - the Pirate Captain’s cabin complete with globe.

Sunflowers at Dart’s Farm - raising money for Hospiscare

Sticker, Bristol Dockside

All images taken by Alan Parkinson

The final one is from around 1983 or 1984. It was taken by Phil Martin on Saddleworth Moor near Huddersfield doing undergraduate fieldwork exploring landslides and soil stability. I remember this day being particularly cold and I was recovering from a cold at the time too. I’m carrying some sort of soil probe.

Events

The PTI is introducing a Geography Subject Expertise course. There are two venues for these courses. Find out more details here.

The Subject Expertise Certificate is running in:
North West: Great Sankey High School, Warrington, WA5 3AA
London: Haberdashers’ Borough Academy, London, SE1 0EX

Encounter Edu have organised a live lesson link up in September with Steve Backshall as part of Ocean Live. The live lesson is on Tuesday 22 September, and will be pitched for ages 7-11, with all welcome to join.

We’re thrilled to launch an exciting new live lesson series, Ocean Live with Steve Backshall. Engaging young people with our ocean is one of the things Steve cares about most, and this series marks the start of a brand-new partnership with Nekton, an incredible ocean exploration charity using the latest technology to understand and protect our seas.

Join us live from The Deep on 22 September, as primary schools across the world tune in for the first broadcast.

Live from DEEP Campus, the UK’s leading underwater training and innovation centre, Steve will explore the cutting-edge technology opening up new frontiers in ocean exploration, and speak to the science team behind some incredible new species discoveries. Expect live quizzes and interaction, segments on tech, exploration and discovery, and a full set of classroom resources and activities to extend the learning long after the broadcast ends. This live lesson will also be broadcast on Children United.

Further details to be confirmed over the summer.

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Seascape is defined by Natural England in its position statement on All Landscapes Matter (2010) as:

“An area of sea, coastline and land, as perceived by people, whose character results from the actions and interactions of land with sea, by natural and/or human factors”.

This would make a useful context to introduce a coastal unit.

What seascapes are you experiencing this summer? Feel free to share them with me.

Image: Donkey rides on Hunstanton Beach, Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

Update - 19th August

Thanks to Phil for sending one of his…

Image; Phil Humphreys

Location:

https://eastrustonoldvicarage.co.uk/

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

This is being posted ahead of a trip down to the SW - from which next week’s newsletter will be posted, with plenty of images hopefully. I hope all teachers are enjoying their summer break and recharging.

The papers have been full of headlines like these… plus a major earthquake in Japan, and cuts to UK science and research.

The BBC visualised the size of the fire near Madrid.

It also showed how the pyrocumulus clouds they create can lead to further fires being started.

Posts

• A useful article in The Conversation explored an area which has been the focus for some fieldwork and other work, on the disappearance of front gardens from off-street parking, which are leading to increased heat in urban areas - not something that you would want to see at the moment.

• Our World in Data have shared an interactive map. Has population peaked in your country?

• Over on my Fieldnotes from Iceland blog, I shared a story about a very popular element of visits to Iceland for school groups: a glacier walk on Solheimajökull glacier. It’s one I’ve done many times myself over the last 16 years of visiting the country.

  

  Image: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.

  That is now becoming a little more difficult and dangerous due to rapidly changing conditions at its snout, according to this RUV story.

  

  Here’s the story on the Vedur - Icelandic Meteorological Office - website.

  It includes new images on the approach, which also has an increased risk of rockfalls now along the whole route to the glacier... and a new lagoon which I have never seen. This could create issues for this particular element of visits to the country - I’m due to head back in November.

• Have you looked at the Draft Subject Content for the GCSE Natural History yet? This has the potential to be an excellent additional subject option with connections to geography, and taught by geographers… or you may have other views. The consultation is open until the 4th of September. I have submitted my (quite lengthy) views already.

One of the core aims of the natural history GCSE is for students to acquire deep knowledge of the species and habitats that make up the natural world in the UK, as well as how these species and habitats interact with one another.

The subject content seeks to enable students to gain a profound understanding of the distinct features and uniqueness of the natural world in the UK. Students will learn about the characteristics of the main wildlife groupings, which will enable them to identify species they may see in their natural habitats. This focus on species and habitats – and the specific requirements contained within the proposed subject content – will ensure students gain excellent breadth and depth of knowledge of a range of key elements of the natural world.

Studying human interaction with nature is essential for educating students about fostering a sustainable and responsible relationship with the natural world. This knowledge is crucial for supporting and conserving habitats and species. The content focuses on understanding the effects of a range of human activities on wildlife and habitats, and exploring how different conservation and habitat‑management methods can preserve and enhance biodiversity.

Through development of the subject content, we have heard clearly that fieldwork is integral to the study of natural history. It plays a key role in providing students with practical experience to support the knowledge they have been taught and the skills they would need to take most advantage of their time outdoors. For this reason, we are proposing an ambitious fieldwork requirement of 20 hours, which goes further than other GCSEs, and will allow students to fully consolidate and extend their learning beyond the classroom.

Within this requirement, we have been mindful of potential delivery challenges for schools. We have therefore used the metric of ‘hours’ (which contrasts with metrics used for fieldwork in other subjects, such as GCSE geography) to make clear that the requirement can be structured flexibly across the duration of the course, including during regular timetabled lessons. Specifications must allow schools to choose locations for fieldwork based on their own local contexts and circumstances, as long as students are able to meet specification requirements. While schools may consider locations in their local areas and further afield, we also encourage schools to consider using school grounds as a location for fieldwork study.

The proposed subject content requires students to understand how climate change – both natural processes and human‑accelerated factors – affects habitats, species and ecological relationships. While climate change is not the primary focus of the qualification, students will be able to build on learning in other subjects and apply this knowledge to the study of the natural world, including how species respond to changing environmental conditions.

Before you read the draft subject content, it may also be worth listening to this podcast with Mary Colwell - whose idea it was - and Caroline Lucas. Mary has her own opinions on what the draft content includes (and excludes).

• Trevor Hinkle has produced a new game which he has shared via his LinkedIn account. It may be of interest to geographers and those who like incorporating games into their teaching.

Grid Town is a browser game where you manage a growing town’s electricity grid. Your goal: navigate the challenges of intermittency, household consumption patterns, and economic realities to run a thriving town entirely on carbon-free energy.

Trevor’s ambition for Grid Town is twofold: to be a fun challenge you keep coming back to enjoy and to educate people on the energy transition via a simplified model of the grid.

You can play the game here.
A reminder of Oskar Stalberg’s wonderful Townscaper if you’ve forgotten about it. Switch off and build your own community of island properties by clicking and right clicking and selecting colours… Have a play.

News

Japan created a new term “kokushobi” for days over 40 degrees C earlier this year… and they’ve just experienced their first one.

This means a “cruelly hot day”.

The rising heat is affecting many aspects of Japanese life – including yields and the quality of rice, a staple. In response, farmers are planting more heat-tolerant varieties, while some are switching to crops such as avocado that have not traditionally been grown at scale in Japan.

The term joins moshobi – “extremely hot days,” the highest level of warning until the recent introduction of the new terminology. Days over 25C are called natsubi or “summer days”, while those exceeding 30C are known as manatsubi – “true summer days.”

You have until the 29th of September to vote for the Woodland Trust’s Tree of the Year 2026. Trees are struggling with the hot and dry conditions and many have gone into a ‘false autumn’ and are shedding their leaves.

The Commonwealth Games 2026 are now open in Glasgow, after an opening ceremony in the Hydro: a great venue. One of the things I learned from it was that Nauru is changing its name back to a more indigenous version: Naoero. There was also a giant Tunnock’s Teacake too. The fact that coverage has moved to streaming platforms is not helping its prominence.

Projects

I’ve been continuing with moderation and report writing for the GA’s Primary and Secondary Geography Quality Marks. I’ve had a few Zoom calls relating to projects. I’ve also done more thinking and editing for the EMO-GI project.

Books

I finished Nicholas Crane’s book on paths and tracks in England. It was good to see a mention for Daniel Raven Ellison and Slow Ways on the penultimate page.

My summer read has also arrived. It’s the new book on Britain’s mountains by Ed Douglas who has previously written a human history of the Himalaya.

I’m also looking forward to the next book by Ed Conway. He has a ‘Material World’ Substack linked to his previous book, and recently explored the geography behind Andy Burnham’s more ‘casual’ clothing. This connects with a unit we teach which explores the hidden detail in a clothing label which just says ‘Made in Bangladesh’. These themes are apparently explored in his next book, which is due out in early September and is called ‘Trade World’.

The story of trade is the story of humanity. From the copper in Mesopotamian ploughs to the silicon atoms within the chip inside your smartphone, intricate global trading networks have evolved over millennia to fulfil the distinctly human desire to buy and sell.

Today, the volume of trade bestriding the planet is unprecedented. Yet, as fractures in the global order emerge – from an era of globalisation and untrammelled flows of goods and money to a new world of restrictions, intervention and, possibly, war – understanding this fundamental shift to the dominant economic consensus is more important than ever.

Ed Conway tells this extraordinary story through these three commonplace products – bread, cloth and cars. With a compelling blend of economic history and first-hand access to key figures and institutions, he takes us from policy treaties to ground level to show us the people who make, ship and sometimes smuggle the products we buy on a daily basis.

Images

The first image below was shared by Matt Podbury. It’s been a summer of wildfires across Europe so far, and the UK is tinder dry. The Cap Ferret peninsula in SW France was evacuated at the start of the weekend, Bordeaux was threatened with evacuation and fires spread in other European countries too. Matt was in North Wales last weekend, where there were also fires.

Aftermath of wildfires, Sychnant Pass, Conwy, North Wales - image copyright: Matt Podbury

The Barbican Centre, London - image by Alan Parkinson

Two pictures from the Latitude Festival next, taken by my daughter. She got to see David Byrne, but the final Sunday headliner was hardly the fun high energy act you want to send you off in a great mood before the fireworks start.

Latitude Festival - images by E. Parkinson

Events

This is happening today - in person at the RGS or online!! You’ll need to be quick to get in.

You also have just 2 days left to submit our entry for the GA’s Model Making Competition. The theme this year is ‘Fragile Environments’.

A repeat of some of the events coming up in the new academic year… but we don’t want to think about that just yet…

In October, Fiona Sheriff is leading a webinar for the RGS on teaching sensitive topics. By that time she will have started her tenure as GA President and have her own entry on my GA Presidents blog.

Details and booking link are here.

Emma Espley has organised another GlosGeog session for the new term, with a speaker from Global Action:

I worked on a major resource for the British Red Cross linked to this event, and also presented with them at a GA Conference. This included some eye-witness details from teacher Rachel Hay, who was in Nepal at the time of the earthquake. Details of how to register for the session are included on the poster above.

The PTI is introducing a Geography Subject Expertise course. There are two venues for these courses. Find out more details here.

The Subject Expertise Certificate is running in:

North West: Great Sankey High School, Warrington, WA5 3AA

London: Haberdashers’ Borough Academy, London, SE1 0EX

Encounter Edu have organised a live lesson link up in September with Steve Backshall as part of Ocean Live. The live lesson is on Tuesday 22 September, and will be pitched for ages 7-11, with all welcome to join.

We’re thrilled to launch an exciting new live lesson series, Ocean Live with Steve Backshall. Engaging young people with our ocean is one of the things Steve cares about most, and this series marks the start of a brand-new partnership with Nekton, an incredible ocean exploration charity using the latest technology to understand and protect our seas.

Join us live from The Deep on 22 September, as primary schools across the world tune in for the first broadcast.

Live from DEEP Campus, the UK’s leading underwater training and innovation centre, Steve will explore the cutting-edge technology opening up new frontiers in ocean exploration, and speak to the science team behind some incredible new species discoveries. Expect live quizzes and interaction, segments on tech, exploration and discovery, and a full set of classroom resources and activities to extend the learning long after the broadcast ends. This live lesson will also be broadcast on Children United.

Further details to be confirmed over the summer.

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

James Bridge, Chief Executive and Secretary-General of the UK National Commission for UNESCO, said:

“The updated UNESCO in the UK map shows at a glance the extraordinary breadth of our national network-from globally significant landscapes and historic places to centres of scientific discovery and creative innovation.

“These are not simply places recognised for what they preserve. They are active partnerships using culture, heritage, science and creativity to benefit their communities and respond to some of the defining challenges of our time. We hope the map inspires people to explore familiar places with fresh eyes and to discover somewhere completely new this summer.”

How many of these have you visited?

The sites are made up of seven different types of locations:

Please let me know which of these you are visiting this summer.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music and films

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• future events that you might be interested in

If you’ve broken up just now - well done!

Another week of summer gone for me. Always a little disappointing as it takes so long to get here, and then it disappears so quickly. The Tour de France has been continuing, as has the heat. The lack of rain for weeks here in the East is concerning - my lawn is crispy - but it will come back green again. I stayed overnight at the splendid White Horse in Brancaster on the Norfolk Coast, and enjoyed a high tide inundating the salt marsh and closing the beach road, and some fine food and ale, and the sound of sandwich terns over towards Scolt Head Island - as explored by J A Steers (I have an early edition of his classic book on the coast). Christopher Nolan’s version of The Odyssey came out on Friday, and I saw it on the opening day. There are only 41 screens in the world capable of showing the film as it meant to be seen: 70mm IMAX. I saw it at the BFI IMAX. It’s a marvellous spectacle, and has been much discussed. The central story is a decent one of course. It’s stood the test of time.

Posts

• I am a big fan of single malt whisky. I obtained a bottle of a special limited edition bottle from the Nc’Nean Distillery which had been transported all the way from the West Coast of Scotland to Norfolk by sail and electric vehicle. The company that brought it down is called the Coastal Exploration Company and you can see their brown sailed boats travelling through the creeks near Wells and beyond. I can recommend it. Here it is arriving at Bakers and Larners of Holt, from where I bought it….

  

  Image: Bakers and Larners of Holt

• The World Cup came to a conclusion. This has caused a great deal of controversy and Spain were the team that most people would have been rooting for in the final, for various events through the tournament, and also given Argentina’s reaction to losing… not the best role models for young people. The overall staging of the Final was awful - a football match crammed in between ‘celebrities’ and lip-synchers; and I agreed with Wayne Rooney for the first time. Joey D’Urso summed it up nicely on his Substack (check out his ‘More than a Shirt’ book for more on sport and geography).

• We have a new Prime Minister. What will their stance be on the environment, climate change and sustainability? Will it be more of the same, or someone who will think longer term and really focus on reducing inequalities? We also have a new Secretary of State for Education in Lucy Powell, who will have to complete the Curriculum and Assessment Review - amongst other things.

• The Youth Climate and Nature Panel is a new initiative from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) putting young people’s voices at the heart of climate and nature policy.

  

  The Government are looking for passionate young people from across the UK who want to help shape the future of climate and nature policy, share their views, and inspire wider action.

  
  The panel will bring together young people aged 16 to 25 from across the UK, representing a wide range of backgrounds, experiences and perspectives to:

  • provide insight and advice to government on climate and nature policies

  • support better engagement with young people

  • strengthen collaboration between different generations on climate and nature issues

  • help amplify youth voices and action across the UK

  The panel is part of the UK government’s commitment to work with people and communities across the country to make sure that everyone can benefit from the transition to net zero.
  
  Fifteen young people will be selected. Young people based across the UK aged 16 to 18 can send in applications for this exciting opportunity.

  More details here.

• I have followed the Substack of Dr. Tom Harris.

• If you have some head space, now is the time to submit your proposal to speak at the GA Conference 2027. This will take place in Sheffield. Here’s the details - if you haven’t spoken before, I can confirm that it adds an extra level to your conference experience - plus you don’t pay for the day that you speak…. I first spoke in 2005 at the conference in Derby on Gifted and Talented - just a 10 minute contribution to a session ahead of Fred Martin. I was nervous, but so pleased that I did it. Here’s a video from Fiona Sheriff on LinkedIn.

News

The Met Office released their annual State of the UK Climate Report. It is not in a good state. The climate of the last century is a thing of the past.

“What we used to think of as extreme, we increasingly consider as normal.”

We have a new Prime Minister in Andy Burnham - will he tackle the big issues? - and a new SoS for Education: Lucy Powell. She will need to complete the CAR work that is well underway.

Projects

I’ve continued cross-moderating PGQM applications and writing my reports for the moderation team. The SGQM moderation has also started today. It’s always a pleasure to look through the evidence that has been submitted. I’ve been working out some responses to the consultation on the GCSE Natural History’s proposed subject content and had a few other interesting calls and meetings about future projects as well.

Books

I bought the new book by David North. He has been connected with Cley Reserve in North Norfolk for many years, and still works there as a volunteer. The book is beautifully designed and laid out. I have been a member of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust for decades, and had the pleasure of a personal tour of the reserve from David some years back when there was the potential for me to work on a project there.

Detail from the publisher:

A year in the life of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s Cley & Salthouse Marshes nature reserve through the eyes of author David North. His observations guide readers through the landscape, wildlife and changing seasons of the 100-year-old reserve on the North Norfolk coast. Artwork supplied by 26 artists is used to illustrate the species observed at the reserve and the natural beauty of the location. This 256-page softback book was written and produced in Norfolk, and printed in the UK on paper from responsible sources. Foreword by Patrick Barkham, NWT President, and cover by the late Robert Gillmor MBE.

Music

Pat Metheny’s latest Side Eye 3 project reached the UK with 3 shows at the Barbican Hall. I first saw Pat play in 1985 on the First Circle tour. He was on good form, and there were some excellent moments. He played ‘First Circle’ too.

Images

Some extra images from this week, specially for Georgia.

Customs House, King’s Lynn

Sea Lavender and a view to Scolt Head Island - Brancaster Staithe

Signage on the Norfolk Coast Path

Stanfords: a mecca for Geographers - although I preferred their previous Covent Garden location.

All images by Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Events

Thanks to the PTI for sharing this image of me speaking at the first PTI Geography Symposium, co-organised with the GA and the RGS and hosted by the RGS. My session was about the Power of Everyday Geographies, and I had given all the delegates a printed copy of a book I’d written specially for the event.

See the previous Substack issue for more on this event and the book.

Image: Toby Smith / PTI

In October, Fiona Sheriff is leading a webinar for the RGS on teaching sensitive topics. By that time she will have started her tenure as GA President and have her own entry on my GA Presidents blog.

Details and booking link are here.

Emma Espley has organised another GlosGeog session:

I worked on a major resource for the British Red Cross linked to this event, and also presented with them at a GA Conference. This included some eye-witness details from teacher Rachel Hay, who was in Nepal at the time of the earthquake.

Details of how to register for the session are included on the poster above.

The PTI is introducing a Geography Subject Expertise course. There are two venues for these courses. Find out more details here.

The Subject Expertise Certificate is running in:
North West: Great Sankey High School, Warrington, WA5 3AA
London: Haberdashers’ Borough Academy, London, SE1 0EX

Encounter Edu have organised a live lesson link up in September with Steve Backshall as part of Ocean Live.

The live lesson is on Tuesday 22 September, and will be pitched for ages 7-11, with all welcome to join.

We’re thrilled to launch an exciting new live lesson series, Ocean Live with Steve Backshall. Engaging young people with our ocean is one of the things Steve cares about most, and this series marks the start of a brand-new partnership with Nekton, an incredible ocean exploration charity using the latest technology to understand and protect our seas.

Join us live from The Deep on 22 September, as primary schools across the world tune in for the first broadcast.

Live from DEEP Campus, the UK’s leading underwater training and innovation centre, Steve will explore the cutting-edge technology opening up new frontiers in ocean exploration, and speak to the science team behind some incredible new species discoveries.

Expect live quizzes and interaction, segments on tech, exploration and discovery, and a full set of classroom resources and activities to extend the learning long after the broadcast ends. This live lesson will also be broadcast on Children United.

Further details to be confirmed over the summer ahead of the new academic year, but we wanted to get this in your diaries now.

The Discover Geography series has been given a new page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Thanks for reading… let others in your network know of the existence of this newsletter. Feel free to get in touch to suggest additional elements or events, or let me know what you think…

The DfE said at the time:

We have worked with experts and stakeholders to develop proposed subject content for a new GCSE in natural history.

The GCSE will allow students to engage with and study specific organisms, including plants or animals and the contexts in which they live, and their complex interactions and dependencies.

It will develop students’ skills of observation, description, recording and analysis, through sustained and structured field study.

Findings from this consultation will be taken into account when finalising the subject content.

Ofqual will consult on assessment arrangements later this year.

There is a consultation period on the contents of the document which ends on the 4th of September.

The RGS will be responding, as will the GA, RMetS, Field Studies Council and other related organisations.

You can send in your thoughts as an individual too!

The questions are as follows.

Download the document first so that you can see which sections the questions refer to. The first section is for identification, with the main questions starting at number 10.

1. What is your name?

2. What is your email address?

3. Are you happy to be contacted directly about your response?

4. Are you responding as an individual or part of an organisation?

5. If you are responding as an individual, how would you describe yourself?

6. If you are responding for an organisation, what type of organisation is this?

7. What is the name of your organisation?

8. What is your role within the organisation?

9. Would you like us to keep your responses confidential and not list your name when publishing the consultation response on GOV.UK? Please note this question applies to all (individuals and organisations).

10. Are the subject aims easy to understand, clear and unambiguous?

11. Paragraphs 7 – 12 of the proposed subject content detail the requirements for the study of habitats and wildlife in the UK. Do you agree with these requirements?

12. Paragraph 13 of the proposed subject content details the requirements for the study of human influence on the natural world. Do you agree with these requirements?

13. Paragraphs 14 – 20 of the proposed subject content detail the requirements for fieldwork. Do you agree with these requirements?

14. Paragraphs 18 and 19 of the proposed subject content set the fieldwork requirement using a metric of ‘hours’, differing from the metrics used in some other GCSE subjects. This is to support schools to structure fieldwork flexibly across the duration of the course, including during regular timetabled lessons, if they wish. Do you agree with using a metric of ‘hours’ for the fieldwork requirement?

15. Are the proposed range and extent of mathematical and statistical techniques, set out in Appendix 1, easy to understand, clear and unambiguous?

16. Appendix 2 provides a list of different types of species within each of the following 6 habitats (Urban, Freshwater, Woodland, Grassland, Farmland and Marine). The department has proposed this is an advisory list from which awarding organisations can use to create their own, equivalently sized list for each habitat, when writing GCSE specifications. Do you agree the list set out in the subject content should be advisory?

17. Are the requirements, set out in Appendix 2, easy to understand, clear and unambiguous?

18. Appendix 3 provides a list of illustrative options for focus of study for each habitat. Are the requirements, set out in Appendix 3, easy to understand, clear and unambiguous?

19. Is there anything you would like to feed back that is not covered in the questions above?

20. Do any of the proposals have the potential to have a disproportionate impact, positive or negative, on specific groups, in particular those who share a ‘protected characteristic’ (age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation)?

21. How could the proposed subject content of the GCSE be altered to:

• better eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation and other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010;

• better advance equality of opportunity between persons who share a protected characteristic and those who do not;

• better foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not?

22. Do any of the proposals have the potential to have an effect, positive or negative, on:

• the use or management of land in the UK;

• the atmosphere;

• any type of inland, coastal or marine water body;

• wildlife;

• the supply of raw materials from natural sources;

• opportunities for outdoor recreation?

This should be of interest to geographers as the introduction of the new qualification will potentially be in competition for students, which may be in the same option blocks. The subject will need to be marketed appropriately and there is some doubt over how many centres will offer it. However, the Facebook group that Anthony Bennett and I moderate has almost 1000 members, suggesting there is quite a lot of interest.

There’s also a blog which already has over 600 posts in advance of resource creation and support for teachers.

Alternatively, the new course may provide additional opportunities for teachers who are light on their timetables, and also provide some additional interest for both teachers and students.

In terms of the actual proposed draft content, a few initial thoughts that I had when looking at it (from many) are:

• there’s no mention of GIS and mapping, which is vital for plotting species distributions and habitats and monitoring changes in those over time

• there are 17 elements to the fieldwork suggestions - is this too many, and are all of them realistic in a school context?

• 20 hours of fieldwork sounds like a lot… but it isn’t across the length of the course itself - more fieldwork time is needed

• ecologists and others who work in the field will often use a notebook where observations and other materials are kept - should a field journal (kept across the length of the course) be a possible method of assessment (in the same way as other subjects allow a portfolio of work

• are the chosen habitats and species appropriate, and what will students do with the knowledge they have of identifying particular species?

If you have any extra thoughts, please feel free to add them in the comments below.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

Last weekend was my wife’s 60th birthday. We went to Center Parcs and stayed in lovely accommodation which was a real treat. I’m off to the coast today to stay overnight by the salt marsh… there’s also a football match later I believe.

Posts

The long awaited PTI Geography Symposium took place last week. It was an excellent event, and I have written several blog posts about it. The event was co-presented by the PTI (the word Professional has replaced Prince’s in its name), the GA and the RGS. The event was hosted by the RGS.

It was forecast to be a hot couple of days in London and it certainly was - challenging conditions for me as I don’t cope well with excessive heat, and I also presented in a room which was very hot - hydration breaks were needed. I’m blogging my thoughts on the event over on Living Geography in a series of posts. It was a few days of inspiration and a memorable meeting with a musical hero: J Willgoose Esq. from Public Service Broadcasting. Accommodation and breakfast was provided by Imperial College - reminding me of student days long gone.

Thanks to all my fellow co-presenters. It was good to catch up with Professor Iain Stewart again.

Hopefully the Symposium becomes an annual event.

Particular thanks to John Wilkinson and the PTI team, including Danielle and Preeya for the invitation and organisation.

• I posted about the impact of heat on the cyclists in the Tour de France. The heat has been excessive, with teams running out of bidons and ice, and the riders suffering more than usual. The stage on Sunday was shortened - the first time in the history of the race - due to excessive heat. The riders are now suggesting that the timing is reviewed for future editions of the Tour - it changed its timing during COVID for example.

  

• At the PTI Symposium, Richard from Wymondham College asked me about my website GeographyPages. This ran from 2001 to 2013. During the early 2000s it was one of a few geography websites. It is now hosted by Richard Allaway with links through to my blogs and Richard’s own work. Check out what Geography used to be like in the early 2000s. I’ve also had a few new subscribers via this route as well.

  

• See the News / Resources section for details of a new and helpful set of resources from Kit Marie Rackley on safeguarding and KCSIE. This is an excellent resource.

• On the World of Music blog we thought back to the 13th July 1985 and Live Aid. What are your memories of that hot sunny day?

• Some common sense coming from one of the candidates at the Clacton by-election.

• A useful article on narrative development by Sarah Dowey. Thanks to Rob Chambers for sharing this.

• The GA published a new blog post from Aqeeb Akram.

News / Resources

Kit Marie Rackley has been busy this week.

She has created a very impressive, thoughtful and helpful new set of materials for potential use in those staff gatherings at the start of each academic year when staff have their KCSIE updates from their DSL or DSO.

KCSIE is short for ‘Keeping children safe in education’ and outlines statutory actions and guidance provided by the DfE for all those working with young people. The most recent updates seem to have paid no attention to the fact that extreme temperatures have caused some schools to close, and distress to some students (and staff) in those that decided to stay open.

KCSIE 2026 talks extensively about mental health, contextual risk, children potentially at greater risk, absence, information sharing, online harms, professional curiosity and whole-school safeguarding. Yet it still fails to name climate change as a foreseeable, context-shaping condition already affecting children’s physical welfare, emotional wellbeing, attendance, safety, learning environments and family circumstances.

Kit has stepped in and produced an illustrated set of guidance materials for DSLs.

As I enter the 2nd week of my school holidays already, I remember that some schools still haven’t finished for the summer and next week sees another run of temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s.

My last week of term featured some very hot and uncomfortable temperatures in my classroom.

The guidance that Kit has produced (all free to use under CC license) includes scenarios to consider.

A heatwave is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A flood is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A drought warning is not automatically a safeguarding concern. A pupil expressing climate worry is not automatically a safeguarding concern.

But any of these can become relevant to safeguarding when they affect a child’s welfare, visibility, attendance, behaviour, safety, access to learning, home circumstances or mental and physical health. That is the point KCSIE misses.

Climate risks are not always safeguarding concerns in themselves. They are safeguarding amplifiers. They can intensify existing vulnerabilities or make hidden ones more visible: housing insecurity, domestic stress, poverty, food and water insecurity, transport barriers, medical vulnerability, SEND-related needs, sensory distress, caring responsibilities, absence from education, poor mental health, social isolation, exposure to misinformation, and unequal access to safe outdoor space.

Kit outlines why context matters here: both home and school.

She then provides a series of scenarios with illustrations and questions. For example:

What questions and decisions need to be made here:

The practical staff model can remain very simple:

• Notice the context.

• Respond proportionately.

• Record factually.

• Refer if concerned.

• Review patterns.

That is KCSIE applied with context, and not an extra burden.

These resources should find their way into many schools - particularly those which faced difficult choices in late May and through June.

Follow this link to download them.

Well done Kit!

Last week was the GiG awards given out by the Government Geography Profession. One award went to Coastcraft: a Minecraft Education project I worked on, on behalf of the Geographical Association, and which won a BETT Award earlier in the year for Best Secondary Digital Product. Check it out here.

Good to see some of the team and their award here:

The Geography in Government (GiG) Awards are annual awards organized by the Government Geography Profession, recognizing outstanding applications of geographic knowledge and skills in government policy and practice.

The CoastCraft educational game was shortlisted for in the Communications category, which recognises government teams, individuals or products who effectively use geographic knowledge and skills to improve public communication. This includes creating clear, engaging and informative materials that help policymakers, stakeholders, and the public understand complex geographic data and its real-world impact.

The project is overjoyed that the CoastCraft game won in this category. It is a reflection of the value of educational gaming in improving coastal literacy and helping game users understand the challenges associated with adaptation pathways.’

Professor Sylvia Knight’s Solutions-Focussed Climate Education article has appeared in this month’s edition of The Association for Science Education’s School Science Review and is open access.

Access it here (PDF download)

Projects

I’ve continued moderating PGQM applications and writing my reports for the moderation team. This will move into its second phase of cross moderating applications about which there was some uncertainty over the most appropriate final level. There are criteria against which we match departments but there is inevitably a huge amount of variability in the way these are interpreted and the eventual conclusion we reach.

Kate Stockings posted a new blog on how to start Year 7.

Images

A few from the last week - PTI and Center Parcs..

The Earth Photo exhibition is in the Glass Pavilion at the RGS - this shows the Thwaites Glacier or ‘Doomsday’ glacier… - image by Alan Parkinson

Center Parcs, Elveden - the lake 1 - image by Alan Parkinson

Center Parcs, Elveden - the lake 2 - image by Alan Parkinson

Events

If you happen to be down in London over the next few months there’s plenty of interest at the RGS, including the Earth Photo exhibition in the Glass Pavilion.

At the end of July, my fellow VP Matt Pycroft is recording the next episode of the Future of Exploration podcast. The books written by his guest this time are known to most geographers.

This will be a live recording of The Future of Exploration with award-winning journalist and bestselling author Tim Marshall, interviewed by Matt Pycroft, and takes place on the 29th of July at 7pm. Register here.

Tim Marshall is one of the UK’s most respected geopolitical commentators and the author of Prisoners of Geography. With decades of experience reporting from conflict zones and global hotspots, his work reveals how geography continues to shape politics, power, and the future of nations.

In this conversation, Tim turns his attention beyond Earth, exploring the emerging geopolitics of space. As nations and private companies race to expand their presence beyond our planet, what does exploration mean in this new frontier?

Hosted by Matt Pycroft, this new RGS podcast series is an inquiry into what it means to explore in a rapidly changing world. We’ll speak with leading thinkers, scientists, and explorers to examine both the practical frontiers and the philosophical questions that define modern discovery.

The series asks what’s left to explore, how exploration is changing, and why it matters more now than ever before – a conversation that will challenge assumptions, broaden perspective, and help shape how we understand the unknown in the decades ahead.

Join in person or online.

The PTI is introducing a Geography Subject Expertise course. There are two venues for these courses. Find out more details here.

The Subject Expertise Certificate is running in:
North West: Great Sankey High School, Warrington, WA5 3AA
London: Haberdashers’ Borough Academy, London, SE1 0EX

The RGS’ popular ‘A’ level study day is back in November.

There are 2 sessions: a morning and an afternoon session, each one lasting two and a half hours. The afternoon is a repeat of the morning’s session.

Book the morning session here.

Book the afternoon session here.

The PTI is delighted to host an online Q&A with Professor Klaus Dodds, one of the UK's leading experts on geopolitics and international relations.

Join us to hear from an inspiring academic whose work explores the complex relationships between geography, politics and global affairs. Participants will consider how contemporary geopolitical issues can deepen students’ understanding of the world and spark curiosity in the Geography classroom.

Professor Klaus Dodds is Professor of Geopolitics at Royal Holloway University of London. He was the former editor of The Geographical Journal and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. Klaus writes the regular 'Geopolitics' column for Geographical Magazine and has published many books on geopolitics, film and the international politics of the Polar Regions. His books include Geopolitics: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press 2014).

He will be chatting to John Wilkinson.

In August there is a special event at the RGS to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the departure of the Discovery expedition.

The line up is excellent and the price is great value too. Day tickets are £15 (£10 members). An evening show and dinner ticket can be purchased for an additional £5. If I wasn’t already away I would definitely be down for this.

Programme

• 1.00pm – Introduction: Jamie Owen FRGS welcomes guests to the Society to mark the 125th anniversary of the Discovery expedition and accompanying fundraising initiative. Jamie will review the essential conservation and digitisation work needed and how this event and our ongoing fundraising will support this.

• 1.10pm – Book launch: Ed Armston-Sheret launches his new book Grip of the Ice. The gripping untold story of Britain’s first Antarctic expedition – a daring journey that launched the legendary careers of Scott and Shackleton. Your opportunity to hear Ed talk about his book and get a copy signed.

• 1.45pm – Talk: Anne Strathie is a polar historian and author known for her work on the history of Antarctic and Arctic exploration. Anne will speak to the golden age of Antarctic exploration.

• Tea and coffee

• 2.30pm – Collections display and talk: Eugene Rae, Principal Librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, takes guests on a tour of our collections from the Discovery expedition as well as items from later expeditions inspired by Discovery.

• Tea and coffee

• 4.00pm – Talk: Esther Horvath, an award-winning photographer, speaks to her work documenting scientific research and life in polar regions.

• 4.30pm – Talk: Dr David Wilson, a highly-regarded polar historian whose great uncle was Scott’s trusted companion Dr Edward Wilson, talks about the great captain himself, Robert Falcon Scott.

• Tea and coffee

• 5.30pm – Talk: Ali Gellatly is the Ship and Facilities Director at Dundee Heritage Trust – the charity tasked with the care and conservation of Captain Scott’s Royal Research Ship Discovery. Ali will talk about the ongoing care and plans for Scott’s iconic ship.

• 6.00pm – Talk: Dr John Shears is a polar explorer and expedition leader who has taken part in multiple Antarctic and Arctic missions. He is known for his involvement in modern polar exploration initiatives and leadership in extreme environments. John will speak to the scientific legacy of the Discovery expedition.

• 6.30pm – Talk: Preet Chandri, polar explorer known as Polar Preet, talks about the future of Antarctic exploration and the challenges we all face.

• 7.00pm – Dinner: Pizza and drinks.

• 8.30pm – Show: Tom Crean: Polar Explorer. Aidan Dooley brings his remarkable one-man show of one of the great figures of polar exploration performed at the Society for the first time.

Display of original materials and artefacts from the Discovery expedition will be on show throughout the day. From 1.30pm in the Foyle Reading Room.

Bar open: 5:00pm – 10:00pm (Map Room).

In October, Fiona Sheriff is leading a webinar for the RGS on teaching sensitive topics. By that time she will have started her tenure as GA President and have her own entry on my GA Presidents blog.

Details and booking link are here.

Emma Espley has organised another GlosGeog session:

I worked on a major resource for the British Red Cross linked to this event, and also presented with them at a GA Conference. This included some eye-witness details from teacher Rachel Hay, who was in Nepal at the time of the earthquake.

Details of how to register for the session are included on the poster above.

The Discover Geography series is on the Collins website, with links to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Thanks for reading and subscribing. Tell your friends!

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• resources that may be of interest

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

I’ve now had a week of summer holiday and have enjoyed the freedom that it offers after another year of 6am wake-ups. After trailing the event for weeks, tomorrow will see the PTI Geography Symposium and I’ll say more about that in the next issue all being well. I’m also packed for my first holiday of the summer connected with my wife’s significant birthday. Fingers crossed that the trains are playing ball all round.

Posts

• The Tour de France is underway. This is my favourite sporting event, and I always try to watch the coverage of every stage from start to finish. The Grand Depart was from Barcelona this year with a team time trial, then some circuits around Montjuic, which I’ve visited before. The race is a 3 week lesson on the geography, geology and history of France (and a bit of Catalonia). It’s a compelling event and also a disgrace that you now have to pay to watch it all this year. The route is interesting. It’s a clockwise year, but most of the NW of France is not visited - the southerly focus will perhaps intensify the heat experienced by the riders. I’ve got a month’s subscription to TNT Sports so that I can see as much as possible of the race and the next few days (and previous days) have explored the wonderful landscape of the Pyrenees. There are also threats of cancellations this year due to wildfires in southern France. Spectators were banned from the finishing area of Stage 3 for example.

• The heatwave of mid to late June led to some schools to make difficult decisions.

  The DfE sent an email to those schools that closed that was criticised as being patronising by headteachers - as reported in the TES.

Kit Marie Rackley was involved in a debate on Teachers Talk Radio about heatwaves.

A headteacher referred back to the famous summer of 1976 and his strategy was ‘we coped then'… which couldn’t go unchallenged. This blog post explains the story. Kit also talked about this with Alistair Hamill in a special Coffee and Geography podcast Espresso edition which can be seen here.

There’s also been an interesting debate over the inclusion of heat and climate anxiety issues in the updated KCSIE documentation which forms a part of all teachers’ INSET at the start of each academic year.

• Rob Chambers wrote a really useful post on Substack, with some thoughts on the upcoming subject content consultation - expected after the summer break - and the importance of all teachers responding to the consultation and not just leaving it up to the RGS and the GA (although both organisations will also be working with teachers to obtain their views on what is proposed). He outlined five areas to consider from what has emerged so far:

1. Updating content requirements so that geography is more representative of the world pupils are learning about. (and also reducing content hopefully)

2. Giving greater prominence to disciplinary knowledge: not just what pupils know, but how geographers think, enquire and make sense of the world.

3. Strengthening the thread of climate change and sustainability across the specification.

4. Reinforcing the value of fieldwork.

5. Supporting smoother progression across Key Stages 3, 4 and 5.

The RGS is keen to collect the views of members and Fellows from the teaching profession as always, and once the review comes out we are ready to spring into action.

Read the update first of all.

The RGS will have Focus groups, and also be collecting responses in a form too for ease of access.

The RGS Education Committee which I chair will be particularly interested in what you have to say.

Use this link to sign up to join one of our Focus groups to discuss the proposals when they emerge. I look forward to chatting with you online. We already have quite a few

The RGS will have a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) framework for you and your departments to assess what you already have covered well, identify gaps, and prioritise areas for development.

The RGS will also be creating new resources mapped out against the new requirements, as well as offering CPD to support teachers in new areas or where changes are greatest.

Do you have any other comments to make? Please send an email to responses@rgs.org.

These will be picked up by the Education Team. We are grateful for your support and participation.

News

There are two vacancies on the GA’s Conference Planning Board. If you’d like to get more involved in planning the GA’s Annual Conference, you have until the end of August to apply to fill one of the vacancies.

• I also wondered this week whether it is time for a new ‘World’? The pace of change means it is unlikely that such a book would stay relevant for as long as in Dudley Stamp’s days.

  

• Over the summer there are plans to see a few films. Don’t forget that I have a film blog with hundreds of films featured.

I will be down to London to see this on the opening day at the BFI IMAX.

• A new book on Powerful Knowledge can be downloaded from UCL Press, with a chapter from Alex Standish.

• I added more outtakes from the Discover Geography series.

• Via Emma Espley and her Educational Roundup Substack, I discovered that the excellent Our World in Data has created an interactive food mapping tool which was launched at the end of June. Created by: By Hannah Ritchie (conceptualization & writing), Sophia Mersmann (visualization), Pablo Rosado (data), and Marwa Boukarim (design)

Hannah Ritchie’s books are an excellent resource for geography teachers by the way.

The food mapping visualisation uses global trade data. Select a food item from the drop down list. Here is Olive Oil for example. This type of graph is called a Sankey diagram: a discussion could be had about these diagrams with students - they are explained further down the page.

Selecting a particular country then shows more data specific to that product.

For example, a lot of Spanish olive oil is exported to Italy… which produces its own olive oil….

And meanwhile Italy exports some of its oil to… Spain… but most of its oil goes to the United States…

• Some additional World Cup posts on the playlists that are being produced for each of the World Cup cities and participating countries. I’ve been exploring their choices - some interesting cultural choices. Here’s England’s anodyne choices, with Wonderwall being added by the fans:

Signature song: Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond)
Warm-up: Vindaloo (Fat Les); Angels (Robbie Williams); With a Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)
Goal music: Chase the Sun (Planet Funk)
Post-match: Sweet Caroline (Neil Diamond); Three Lions (Baddiel, Skinner & The Lightning Seeds)

Projects

I’ve spent some time this last week moderating applications for the Primary Geography Quality Mark. As always there are some excellent ideas being developed in Primary schools across the country and it’s a pleasure to read the stories of creative departments and schools.

I’m also continuing to respond to copy-editor comments on the manuscript of a book I’m co-editing with Alex Standish on curriculum development, to be published by Bloomsbury in 2027.

I’ve also been investigating a huge EU funded project called Infra4NextGen. This has involved a large number of organisations and UK universities. One of the organisations involved is Eurogeo, who I have worked for on several projects including the current EMO-GI project.

The aim is to make data available for decisions to be made around five key EU priorities for the next generation for EU Youth policies:

“Make it Green!”, “Make it Digital!”, “Make it Healthy!”, “Make it Strong!”, “Make it Equal!”.

An interactive map tool has been created and further resources on the use of the tool will be created.

This will be part of some educational materials to help teachers engage with the themes of the project.

Watch this space for more details on those.

Films

I watched ‘The Welcome Table’ as I had HBO Max in order to watch the Tour de France. This had a lot of positives about it. I will be reviewing it for my Geography in/on Cinema blog.

There were a number of key messages related to migration and the climate breakdown and some interesting global case studies including the Treme district of New Orleans which has featured over on my World of Music blog too. As it says in the opening few minutes of the film:

People have always migrated.

Always looking for that elusive home on the horizon.

What tells us we’re home?

Where is home?

Home tells us who we are

Home tells us what we’re like. It tells us who we love.

What we eat

What we say and in what language

Home is how the sun should feel on your skin.

Nobody wants to leave the ground they’re rooted to.

The sounds, the smells, the smiles.

The familiarity

The comfort of all that we know.

Of all we were made by.

Sometimes we have no choice but to move.

Resources

Internet Geography offers great value for a subscription for IG+ membership. Anthony has just added a brand new free resource connected with last week’s heatwave.

Check out the website here.

Books

This is an essential book, and it’s now out in paperback, so will hopefully reach lots more people. The emotional response to climate change is an important element of the EMO-GI project I’m involved with.

I’ve also moved into August in my heatwave reading: this social history book.

Images

Beach huts - Kent - image by Sally Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Working in the RGS ‘sunken garden’ - image Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Events

It’s the summer. so events are going to reduce in number now but other elements of the newsletter, such as images etc. will increase.

In October, Fiona Sheriff is leading a webinar for the RGS on teaching sensitive topics. By that time she will have started her tenure as GA President and have her own entry on my GA Presidents blog.

Details and booking link are here.

Emma Espley has organised another GlosGeog session:

I worked on a major resource for the British Red Cross linked to this event, and also presented with them at a GA Conference. This included some eye-witness details from teacher Rachel Hay, who was in Nepal at the time of the earthquake.

Details of how to register for the session are included on the poster above.

The PTI is introducing a Geography Subject Expertise course. There are two venues for these courses. Find out more details here.

The Subject Expertise Certificate is running in:
North West: Great Sankey High School, Warrington, WA5 3AA
London: Haberdashers' Borough Academy, London, SE1 0EX

Cyrus Golding is organising a Teachmeet for next Wednesday.

Join us for a TeachMeet designed for educators to showcase their vibe-coded ideas 🤖 — Wednesday 15 July, 3pm UK, online. Free. 🎉

Presenters share one idea. 3 minutes each, 2 for questions. Any phase, any subject from any country. 🌟

Hosted by:
Cyrus Golding (Uni of Southampton), Polly Glegg (UCL), Mikhail Devitt (Ashton Edu), Mélissa Chan-Cheape (Google)

Sign up to present by Friday 10th July and we will be in touch
🎤 Sign up to present: https://lnkd.in/dpQkC63q
👀 Sign up to watch : https://luma.com/fe3x9oj0

The Discover Geography series has its own page on the Collins website, with links to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Go to the Hub link to take a look inside the books which may help you decide whether they would be a good addition to your teaching reservoir.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

Well, today is the first day of my summer holiday - I just have a morning of INSET to come on Friday and then that’s it until September.

I was planning to celebrating the end of another academic year by heading down to London for a few events, including a party at the V&A for authors published by Harper Collins. Sadly Great Northern trains had other ideas.

Last week we had the record breaking heat which persisted into the weekend in the SE with another sweltering day. The June temperature record was broken three times and the Friday saw the highest temperatures at Santon Downham in Suffolk, which is just 20 miles south of where I live and recorded 37.3 degrees C.

Posts

The heatwave of last week occupied quite a few posts, and will be picked over for a while to come yet. There were several posts added to my Passed the point of no return blog.

It also looks like there is an early indication that the heat could return in 10 days or so - one of several such events we will perhaps have this summer. It may be time to invest in air conditioning… and the Observer explored the idea of heat inequality.

Just 26% of people in the most deprived areas live within a five-minute walk from green space and the natural cooling it provides, according to Natural England, compared with 38% of people in wealthier neighbourhoods.

I also passed 365 posts on my World of Music blog which will have at least 1 post a day during 2026 and reached the half way point of my year of musical blogging. The blog has had over 40 000 page views which is not too bad. Still plenty of time for you to contribute a guest post on a musical act of your choice.

• Will Fry posted a nice idea for a summer flânerie / drift challenge for older students, with the potential to capture their wandering in a StoryMap.

Changing Places

Summer flânerie challenge

Here’s the challenge I’m setting to my Year 11 students for the summer holidays as they move into their A Level course. Feel free to join in…

Read more

2 months ago · 16 likes · 1 comment · Will Fry

His Changing Places Substack is worth a follow.

• We had the devastating earthquakes in Venezuela to wake up to last Thursday. The impact comes at a bad time for the country with uncertainty and financial concerns following an intervention by President Trump some months ago. The death toll is expected to rise into the tens of thousands, although there have been some miraculous stories of people surviving in the rubble. Time is running out for such miracles to happen.

• There are currently two vacancies on the GA’s Conference Planning Board.

  If you’d like to get more involved in planning the GA’s Annual Conference, you have until the end of August to apply to fill one of the vacancies.

  

  I served on the board for several years during my Presidential journey and it’s an interesting professional development opportunity as well as seeing another side to Conference.

• I’ve continued to post both positive and negative stories with a geographical theme linked to the 2026 FIFA men’s World Cup. Gianni Infantino has been seen at lots of matches.

  The BBC has been investigating the carbon cost of his ‘jet setting’ lifestyle during the tournament.

  

  
  In Fifa’s 2026 World Cup sustainability and human rights strategy, the president said:“Whether we speak about climate, human rights, diseases or disabilities, we are committed to play our part.”
  
  BBC Verify and BBC Sport have been tracking a private jet - linked to Fifa and Infantino - which has taken 27 flights during the tournament to cities where the Fifa boss has been pictured attending matches.
  
  The estimated climate impact from this jet over a fortnight is roughly equivalent to those from 78 people on average over a whole year.

  

• Dan Raven Ellison trailed a new film in the ‘100 Seconds’ series.

Also check out:

The UK in 100 Seconds https://lnkd.in/e2c9WwJy
UK National Parks in 100 Seconds https://lnkd.in/eaZGrVvu
The Netherlands in 100 Seconds https://lnkd.in/epMrs6qJ
North Brabant in 100 Seconds https://lnkd.in/e66A7A-G
And cut together from the previous projects, Earth in 100 Seconds https://lnkd.in/euia5DiW

Made for EU's Copernicus Land Monitoring Service, Dan will share more details when the film is ready. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Fawcett Fellowship applications are open at the moment, and you have another five or six days to apply. I’ve mentioned these several times before and also blogged about them as well. They are an excellent career and professional development opportunity with two ‘modes’ of entry. Details here.

Deadline is the 7th of July.

News

Earlier this week there was a meeting of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society in its 196th year. London was still a hot place to be, although the ‘sunken garden’ at HQ was a relatively cool place to have lunch.

The main news this week was the heat of course, and the ways that our schools are just not designed for it. This also came with a research report on the educational outcomes for white working class students, which once again connected with the idea of local and everyday geographies.

Some schools have several weeks of term left as well.

The devastating earthquakes in Venezuela have potentially killed tens of thousands. The British Red Cross has an appeal open.

Projects

More work on several projects this week. I started moderating applications for the GA’s Primary Geography Quality Mark once again. A big project bid was submitted as well, and there was ongoing thinking and conversations around the Polar film project and the GCSE Natural History support project.

My latest contribution to the Collins blog was published. This was on the theme of fieldwork and had the same title as the session I led for Homerton PGCE colleagues last week: “How to be outstanding in your field(work)”.

Books

I’ve been responding to copy-editor queries for chapters I wrote and edited for a book I’m co-editing with Alex Standish from UCL, to be published in early 2027 on the theme of curriculum design, which grew out of my year as a Fawcett Fellow.

I also continued with Nicholas Crane’s book on paths, which has now reached the motor age. I started in on Bill McGuire’s sobering new book too. He is one of the speakers at the PTI Geography Symposium next week.

I also read Emma Espley’s latest educational roundup. She suggested this short video on the Guardian’s website.

Has Cornwall’s housing crisis created a van life generation?

The south-west English county’s housing crisis is forcing young people to live in vans. As second homes and short-term holiday lets drive up house prices, a growing number are turning to van life to stay in the place they love. The Guardian meets young people who say their van brings them freedom but also uncertainty, as they struggle to find water, safe places to park and a secure future.

There was also this BBC News story on the downsides of camper vans on the Isle of Skye.

Images

Norfolk Lavender, Heacham, NW Norfolk - home of the national collection of lavenders - doing well in the heat this week - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

The Wash Monster heading out - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Roasting night on Friday… seeking the cool of the garden after midnight - Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license

Events

Fewer of these will be featured as we move towards the summer break. Next week sees the PTI Geography Symposium I’ve been waiting for for some time.

Earth Photo opened at the RGS on the 30th of June in the Glass Pavilion at the top of Exhibition Road. It is well worth coming to see. You can also come to the awards free of charge tomorrow, with Chris Packham handing out the awards. A ticket is required.

If that whetted your appetite, head for Summit Photo later this month, also at the RGS. Explore how photography and filmmaking can drive positive change and address global challenges.

Whether you’re passionate about photography or simply care about our planet, we want you to be a part of the conversation. This is a chance to reflect, debate and be inspired while hearing from world-renowned photographers, leading scientists, explorers and policymakers.

With talks, exhibitions and workshops, discover insights and stories of change and hope from around the world.

Confirmed speakers include Areeba Hamid (Co-leader Greenpeace), James Balog, Bertie Gregory, Simon Townsley, Aaron Gekoski, Shahidul Alam, and Mandy Barker.

A day pass, including refreshments and pizza and salad for lunch is just £15 for members.

The RGS are also running a free online fieldwork course next Monday in association with the Field Studies Council. Details and booking link here.

In October, Fiona Sheriff is leading a webinar for the RGS on teaching sensitive topics. By that time she will have started her tenure as GA President.

Details and booking link are here.

Don’t forget to submit a session to the GA Conference 2027 as well - you have until the end of August.

Thanks for reading and subscribing.

Get in touch if you have anything you want adding into a future issue.

The Discover Geography series has been given a new page on the Collins website, with links now to the Hub digital materials that I worked on to support the series and the webinar that was recorded when we launched it.

Go to the Hub link to take a look inside the books which may help you decide whether they would be a good addition to your teaching reservoir.

Each newsletter will usually include a number of sections:

• a digest of posts from the LivingGeography blog (and other blogs)

• any important geographical news

• an update on any personal projects

• details of books that I am reading, or cultural experiences such as music

• a couple of nice images taken this week

• events that you might be interested in

Another varied week.

Saturday saw the school’s summer celebration. Sunday was Father’s Day and it was out to our favourite pub for a Sunday roast. Then the heat arrived. I do not like it at all. The UK is definitely hot right now. Today’s forecast is bad….

I’ve been adding some extra posts to my Passed the point of no return blog.

Don’t forget to respond to the GCSE Natural History consultation to help shape the new GCSE offering. Plenty more on this on my GCSE Natural History blog.

I am about to head off to Homerton College. I’ve been heading there every year for at least 20 years to do a session with the PGCE colleagues.

Emma Espley produced a useful summary of the SW Geography Conference which took place on Monday this week.

Posts

• Next year’s GA conference theme is Passionate about Geography.

Passion is at the heart of geography. It drives us to explore, question and understand the world around us. Geography helps us make sense of our planet and our place within it, but more than that, it encourages us to care. Passion transforms geographical knowledge into something meaningful, prompting us to make connections and engage with real-world issues.

For many students, that passion begins in the classroom. Through powerful enquiries and meaningful experiences, we can spark curiosity and help shape how young people think about the world. In a time of complex global challenges, from climate change to inequality, geography provides essential understanding, but it is passion that motivates action.

By creating engaging, inclusive classrooms and supporting all learners, we can nurture students’ interests in weather, climate, landforms, processes, places and people.

Being passionate about geography will help us to inspire future geographers to understand and shape our world.

Fiona Sheriff – GA Vice President 25-26