More about this Substack....
And more about me.
Hello. Almost 300 subscribers in less than 3 weeks - thank you and welcome. Welcome to those I haven’t met in person, welcome to those from further afield (ranging from The Netherlands to New Zealand) and welcome to those colleagues I have known for some years - you know who you are.
Before I submit more geographical stuff, I thought I ought to let you know more about what I want to do with this Substack - a great medium by the way. I want to help teachers of A level Geography in the UK (and elsewhere) by:
Providing guidance on tackling exam questions (I will NEVER suggest how you should teach - that is your job)
Providing exemplar questions and answers for you to use in class or elsewhere. Some of these will be from past exam papers, some will be made up. I hope all of the answers will be reasonable in quality. [You may have seen on Twitter that one colleague put a recent answer of mine through ChatGPT ….. and I did ok!]
Providing background materials for some topics such as the key concepts (Sustainability, Risk, Mitigation, Identity etc. etc.)
I also want to explore ‘exam things’ such as the difference in the assessment objectives (in the UK) known as AO1 and AO2; and the concepts of connections/links …. previously known as synopticity (even that has changed in meaning since the term was first ‘invented’ in the 1990s)
Re-publishing and updating materials I have written over the last 25 years
Whatever else comes to mind, that I think may be useful.
As for me…. I am now a retired, three score years and ten plus, teacher and Chief Examiner. I taught in 3 English schools: Don Valley High, and Adwick School in Doncaster, and then De Aston School in Market Rasen, Lincs. I progressed from being a bog-standard geography teacher to HOD, HOY, Assistant Head and Deputy Head (Pastoral). All three schools were state comprehensive.
At the same time I worked as an A Level Examiner. I started in 1982 for the then JMB (hence my Twitter name), then NEAB, NEA and AQA. In 1989, I became the No 2 to Malcolm Skinner, and then Chief Examiner for AQA in 1997, to 2014. I left AQA in 2015 - a less than cordial exit. The last specification I taught was Edexcel.
I write, speak and listen. I have visited many schools (state and independent), colleges and universities - I still do, but on a lesser scale. Some of you may have seen me recently at the Hodder Hazards events in Nottingham, Manchester and London, alongside the ‘gods’ of Sue Warn and Dave Petley. I am lucky to have worked alongside some great geographers - three stand out: Malcolm Skinner (now somewhere in Rossendale, Lancs) and the late Ken Briggs and Michael Bradford.
I am not on Facebook (I see a number of you have signed up this way), or Instagram, but I do have the indulgence of Twitter (until Musk ruins it). Not all my tweets are geographical.
Finally, this Substack is free, and always will be. You may agree with me, or not - that is up to you. Now on with the Geography, and thank you again for subscribing.
Spread the word!