Welcome to the GA’s online programme for the Annual Conference and Exhibition 2025! Take some time to explore the programme and build a personalised schedule using the full list below, or find the best sessions for you using the filter options. Keep an eye on this programme for updates and to interact with other delegates, exhibitors and sponsors. For more information on the Conference, see the GA website.
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Geography students can sometimes struggle to derive the intended level of understanding from new content. Often, this can be due to their own misconceptions about the world. This session seeks to identify some of these misconceptions and provide strategies to address them. Attendees will also be invited to share and discuss their own examples and strategies, allowing educators to help students make stronger knowledge-based connections in their geography lessons.
In recent years, geography has grappled with decolonising and diversifying its curriculum. In this session, Krystian – one of the leading antiracist and decolonising thinkers in RE – presents expert insight in to how religious education has explored similar challenges in a different landscape, and what we might be able to learn from each other.
Former secondary Geography teacher with over a decade's classroom experience, specialising in physical Geography, I'm now involved in initial teacher education in Geography for Teach First, where I lead the teacher training programme and curriculum. I believe teaching is a team sport... Read More →
As Teaching Geography celebrates its 50th year of publication, this session picks out some highlights from the archive and shares how to get the most out of your journal subscription. Then we want to hear from you: where do we go next? What topics should we be publishing articles on? Aspiring writers welcome; bring your ideas!
It's easier than ever before to obtain free satellite data for use in your classroom, promoting discussion among younger pupils and analysis from older students. This workshop will introduce a range of sources and support you in using them to explore the possibilities they provide.
Due to its interdisciplinary nature, geography provides a space where students can explore topics, issues and ideas, as well as develop as young people; this is inherently pastoral. Therefore, this session highlights some of the areas within geography where this overlap is really noticeable, and how geographers can work with their pastoral team to enhance provision.
Following recent concerns about a lack of GIS in the curriculum (e.g. Ofsted 2023), this session will offer suggestions on connecting GIS and other geospatial learning to its rightful place in the curriculum based on many years of ongoing classroom practice. The session will consider curriculum sequencing, progression and endpoints for school-based GIS.
I have over thirty years’ experience as geography teacher, head of department and pastoral lead in three maintained schools and one independent school. I led my current department to become a Geographical Association Centre of Excellence.I am an author of a range of geographical... Read More →
This session will explore how effective modelling can help to enhance students' geographical knowledge. It will be broken up into: what is modelling and the types; how we can use tech to model concepts; use of a visualiser; one form of modelling – 'I do, we do, you do'; how modelling may differ from a lower ability to a higher ability class; student-centred modelling; and instructional inputs.
Nature has always been crucial for thriving cities, but our relationship with it has changed as we've urbanised. We need to re-connect to nature for sustainable futures. Living cities, a module of UCL-IOE's free Teaching for sustainable futures CPD programme, explores how geography and history teaching can help do this.
Discover how trees can enrich your curriculum, fostering hands-on learning, fieldwork, GIS and environmental stewardship. Gain practical ideas for projects and activities that connect students with nature and challenge them to think about how the trees in your school site/local area connect to larger concepts such as sustainability and climate change.
Karen Corfield explores why Scandinavian countries consistently rank high in the happiness index, as well as having all five countries in the top 10 according to the HDI. This lecture will examine the demographics of these countries, including political, economical and cultural geographies, and how the special connections between the physical and human world impact overall well-being.
This session will look at strategies exploring 'powerful resources', i.e. artefacts, images and resources that are resonant and meaningful, working across curriculum areas to not only create dialogue across departments but demonstrate to students that climate change and sustainability affects all academic areas and requires a holistic understanding of the issue, its challenges and its solutions. Participants will be given resources to distribute in their schools across departments.
This session will explore how children can use their own migration stories to develop an understanding of their connections to the school community. Reflections on an enquiry project of 'life as a migrant' will be shared with other teachers to encourage more student voices in the wider community.
This session will share research findings comparing 13 countries' secondary geography textbooks; we've analysed climate change content in these textbooks and mapped out connections between diverse locations and approaches. Classroom teachers will gain insight into developing quality teaching materials to support students in becoming climate-change-informed citizens.
Learn how articles posted on the Teaching Physical Geography blog have helped to shape and improve the teaching of physical geography topics, and how this impacts students' learning. Plus, find out how you can get involved and contribute to the canon of experience.
This is an opportunity to look at strategies we've used to support SEND and additional needs students, particularly Kent County Council's Mainstream Core Standards model, allowing all students to make progress. We start with the introduction of booklets to support knowledge learning and go onto further strategies we've developed, with an opportunity to discuss how potential pitfalls can be addressed.
The Environment Agency has collaborated with the GA and HLP to develop a series of lessons and resources introducing careers into the classroom: Hello EA Careers. We introduce roles related to flood and coastal risk management that will inspire young people to consider careers in the water and environment sector. This content will be free for teachers and available through the GA website; what will you discover about future roles for geographers?
In the words of Dr Seuss, 'reading can take you places you have never been before'. It enables students to connect with geographies and cultures that aren't their own while fostering cross-curricular links. This workshop provides practical ideas to engage students with resources that they may not otherwise use in order to broaden their geographical horizons and encourage aspiration.
Progression should be deepening and developing geographical understanding, not just acquiring more facts. How do we decide what 'making progress' is and what it looks like across the different stages of education? This is a practical workshop learning from schools across Wales to develop approaches for connecting primary and secondary geography education.
The session opens up discussion about the future of geography teaching in the face of the epochal challenges facing human societies – and indeed life on Earth. This requires fresh thinking about the purposes and potential of education, and the possible contributions of geography. We focus on teachers' 'knowledge work' in the context of the late Bruno Latour’s terrestrial eco-social politics.
A look at how teachers can make the most of the curriculum through interleaving topics and themes to support student knowledge retention and engagement.
We look again at the water cycle, including: how to draw a cloud; how to make a cloud; popular misconceptions we've discovered from our climate literacy survey; the water cycle and climate change; cloud seeding and conspiracy theories; contrails (and chemtrails) and climate change; and changes to the oceans and cryosphere.
Sylvia Knight is Head of Education at the Royal Meteorological Society and a visiting Professor in the schools of Education and of Mathematical, Physical and Computational Sciences at the University of Reading. With a background in climate science, her role involves supporting the... Read More →
Sandra will present her research and deliberate practice actions, which were developed as part of a wider body of work with the Building on Barbie global research team. Conversation mapping is used to capture the impact of deliberate practice. There'll be the opportunity to connect through group discussion regarding barriers to KS4 geography study.
Please join us as we share seven GIS ideas for geography teachers. This practical session will showcase easy-to-use classroom activities to help students understand global connections, sustainability and the relationship between physical and human geography. Learn how to integrate GIS into your teaching to make lessons more interactive and relevant.
In a matter a short few years, Nicholas Brown has transformed GCSE geography from a dying subject to the beating heart of his school. By creating a spoke and hub model with geography in the centre, students are excited at the subject's relevance in their day to day lives: creating businesses; travelling; beekeeping; and growing food.
Head of Geography and Horticulture, Ysgol Clywedog
Hailing from Ysgol Clywedog in Wrexham, Nicholas Brown has been the Head of Geography and Horticulture for the last 6 years. During this time, he has boosted the uptake of Geography at KS4 from 16 pupils to a steady 120 (maximum allowed). Added to this he has developed an increasingly... Read More →
Climate change can often feel distant and abstract to our students; how can we make it more tangible and relevant? Using local places to build connectivity and empowerment? Building connections to far places while representing them in a just way? This lecture leans on evidence about climate change education and geography-curriculum-making to consider how we can use place to support our students' understanding of the climate emergency.
This workshop will explore how we can make international connections from our classrooms and through travel. We'll consider how barriers to carrying out international fieldwork can be overcome, and discuss issues related to sustainable travel. Practical activities will include using resources from GA Study Tours, discussing fieldwork scenarios and evaluating the sustainability of travel for learning.
This session explores the meaningful integration of educational technology to help students connect to their personal geographies. It highlights the use of gamified online learning experiences, technology-transformed fieldwork and using GIS in the classroom for spatial analysis. Discover how these tools can transform geographical education and help students foster deeper connections to the world around them.
Alarming news items about climate change can lead to eco-stress. One of the ways to reduce this is to let students envision different possible futures and discuss which future they prefer. In this workshop, we'll walk through two scenario thinking tasks and discuss the experiences of students and teachers with them.
The 2023 Ofsted subject report commented that schools should plan for progress in procedural knowledge including the use of maps and GIS. This session considers what progression in procedural knowledge looks like and how to plan for it, when designing a coherent 11-16 geography curriculum. It will introduce new curriculum guidance for Progress in Geography KS3, and the Ordnance Survey.
Using what I've learned from my NPQ for Leading Teacher Development, I'll narrate how I've implemented key principles into my own department CPD time, as well as provide practical ways to structure subject-specific CPD in other geography departments.
