GA Past Presidents’ Questionnaire

Name:
Professor Simon Catling.
When and Where you were born?:
Leicester, UK, September 3 rd, 1947.
Where did you go to school/university?:
Town Close Preparatory School, Norwich, Norfolk. September 1954 to April 1956.
Melbourne Lodge Preparatory School, Claygate, Surrey. April 1956 to December 1960.
Tonbridge School, Tonbridge, Kent. January 1961 to July 1965. Gained O levels and A
levels (including geography at both levels).
St. Mark and St. John College of Education, Chelsea, London. September 1967 to June
1971. Gained a BEd degree in geography and education, qualifying as a primary teacher.
University of London Institute of Education. September 1971 to September 1973. Part-time.
Gained an MA in Geography Education.
What has your career been?:
1965-67: Teacher at Daneshill Preparatory School, Oxshott, Surrey. Taught geography
through the school, as well as mathematics and English to some younger classes. [This was
to check that I wanted to teach. I was unqualified and a teenager (18 and 19 years old).]
1971-72: Full-time Sabbatical President of the University of London Institute of Education
Students’ Association (ULIESA). ULIESA was the federation of all the Colleges and
Departments of Education which were accredited by the Institute of Education, University of
London (about 35 all told). [I got involved in student politics from 1969, which led to being
elected to this post and becoming involved a little in NUS politics.]
1972-1975: Class 3 and 4 teacher at Melcombe Junior School, Fulham, London. Also
promoted to be responsible for humanities and boys’ games: 1973-75.
1975-1980: Class 5 and 6 teacher at Sheringdale Primary School, Southfields, Wandsworth,
London. Appointed to this promoted post with responsibility for boys’ games and humanities,
then later school journeys.
1980-1984: Deputy Head teacher at Southmead Junior School, Southfields, Wandsworth,
London. Also responsible for humanities and school journeys. [From where I moved into HE
and ITE.]
1984-2012: Variety of posts and roles in the School of Education, Oxford Brookes University
(Oxford Polytechnic to 1992), Oxford, including senior lecturer in education (1984-1990),
lead for primary geography (across the whole period), lead for primary humanities (1984-
2000), principal lecturer responsible for initial teacher education (1990-1995), Deputy Head
of the School (1995-1998), and Acting Head of the School (1998-2000), Deputy Head of the
(retitled) Institute of Education (2000-2008). From 2001 I was appointed Professor of
Education, which in 2008 became Professor of Primary Education, and Emeritus Professor
in 2012.

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2013-2014: Appointed, post-retirement, I returned a part-time post in the School of
Education (as it became again in 2008), as Professor of Primary Education.
2012-present: Supposedly retired, though still officially affiliated with the University and
active in writing and research.
What was your job when you became President?:
Principal Lecturer for Initial Teacher Education, School of Education, Oxford Brookes
University, tutor for geography education and primary humanities lead.
What theme did you choose when President, and why did you pick it? What had been
your involvement with the GA leading up to that time, and since that time?:
The theme was: The Whole World in Our Hands, which was my 1993 Conference title, and
the title of my Presidential lecture.
I decided on this theme because I felt that it encapsulated the nature and role of geography
in education, in school geography and in higher education.
I had been an active member of the GA before being invited to become President (as Junior
Vice-President 1990-91 and Senior Vice-President 1991-2) from 1992-93. I had been Chair
of the Education Standing Committee from 1984-1990. I became Past President from 1993-
1994. I was an Honorary Vice President of the GA from 2002-5. Between 1994 and 2002 I
chaired the GA’s New Initiatives Fund.
I was heavily involved in the GA’s responses to the National Curriculum Geography Working
Group. I organised the GA’s initial input to the Working Group and, when it was up and
running in 1990, the feedback about its initial proposals, following six regional conferences.
In early 1991 I was involved in work by the National Curriculum Council to modify the WG’s
proposals, which became the Order for the subject placed before parliament to be
implemented from September 1991. My name was put forward by the GA.
Why does the GA matter to you? How did you get involved, and what roles have you
played in the GA?:
The GA’s significance for and to me is its work to support and improve geographical
education at all levels of education. When I joined the Primary and Middle Schools
Committee in 1975, in effect that committee contained the only focused members on
geography for primary age children, and those members were not highly regarded. I have
always seen my role as to promote the importance of early years and primary geography
within the full context of geography in all schools. Many more primary teachers and teacher
educators have become involved since the launch of Primary Geography in 1989,
significantly promoted by Patrick Bailey and Michael Storm, both past Presidents, at that
time. The GA continues to have a large and high contributing group of stalwart EY and
primary member teachers in schools and in ITE. It has provided for many years CPD for EY
and primary schools and teachers for whom it also provides a strong set of publications. I
hope that I have played some part in this over the past 45 years.
I have been involved with the GA since 1975, when I went to my first Conference at the LSE.
I attended the Primary and Middle Schools Annual Meeting, not realising that those present
were all members of the committee. I was immediately invited onto the Committee, of which I
remained a member until 1990. From 1983-87 I was its Chair. I stood down when I became
Junior Vice-President, which I took up immediately on completing my two terms as Chair of
the Education Standing Committee in 1990.

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From 1985 to 1988 I was the GA representative to the Historical Association’s Education
Committee, and from 1985 to 1988 I represented the GA on the Ordnance Survey/Royal
Geographical Society Education Committee. During 1994-95 I was a member of the GA’s
Teacher Education Working Group. From 2010 to 2015 I was a member of the GA’s
Independent Schools Special Interest Group. I returned to be a member of the GA’s Early
Years and Primary Schools Committee in 2005 and remain a member.
In 2017 I was appointed an Honorary Member of the GA for services to geography
education, receiving the GA’s highest award.
I have given presentations and run workshops periodically at GA Conferences since 1977.
Over the years I have published articles in all three GA journals, as well as in other
international geography education and mainstream education scholarly journals (somewhere
around 300 publications in all). I have written material for primary children also. I have given
many lectures and run workshops for primary teachers. I have been involved in the work of
the Schools Council, National Curriculum Council, Schools Examination and Assessment
Council, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, and other national education
committees and working groups, particularly concerned with geography education in
schools. These have all been supported by my engagement in the GA.
In addition to these roles in the GA, I was a member of the International Geographical Union
Commission on Geographical Education (IGU CGE) UK Committee from the mid-1990s to
its merger with the Geography Education Research Collective (GEReCo) (of which I was
also a member) in 2018. From 2008 to 2012 I was Honorary Secretary of the IGU CGE.
Since 1992 I have attended many international geography education conferences, as well as
conferences in the UK. At these I have been a regular presenter. Again, my involvement in
the GA has been an important aspect of and support for my contributions. I have been
invited from time to time to give keynote lectures on primary geography at international and
national conferences.
What would you say were the successes/main memories of your GA Presidential
year?:
It was a busy year, as the new National Curriculum Geography requirements began to be
implemented (from 1991-92), which the GA encouraged members and many more teachers
to take seriously. There was much follow up work, particularly in developing support and in-
service activities. I was involved in inviting the Princess Royal to open the GA Conference in
Sheffield in 1993; she spoke very supportively of the Association and about the value of
geography and was very well received (her second husband and her nephew both hold
geography degrees). I engaged well-known speakers for the Conference from in and beyond
the geography education world, including a government education minister, and the UK’s
past UN representative, Sir Crispin Tickell.
My Presidential Lecture reminded its large audience of the reasons for setting up the GA and
its purpose, about what children are able to bring to geographical learning, significant
aspects of geography education, and its links with development education. It concluded in
setting some goals for the future for the Association (see Geography Autumn, 1993) This
seemed to go down well!
Do you have any other memories of Past Presidents that may not otherwise be
available to my research?:
I have been acquainted with all the GA Presidents since 1975, and some I have known well.

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We have had several very stimulating primary education geographers as Presidents. I do not
know of any before myself but there may have been. Wendy Morgan (1997-98) brought the
freshness of the primary teacher to her year, as well as her long service on the Primary and
Middle Schools Committee. John Halocha was an excellent ITE tutor. Fran Martin brought a
wider awareness and context through her links and research in intercultural understanding.
Steve Rawlinson and Stephen Scoffham brought strong primary geography insights and
have provided fresh and rigorous insights to the Association’s committees for many years.
Others, such as past local authority advisers Michael Storm, Roger Carter and Jeremy
Krause, have a combined knowledge of geography being taught in primary and secondary
schools and much experience of working with teachers in both settings.
Norman Graves provided an intellectual depth and breadth about geography education
which was highly respected and sought. Richard Daugherty has done likewise, particularly
for Welsh government curriculum developments.
Eleanor Rawling is a particular friend who has provided great service for the geography
education community for very many years, as one of our leading thinkers, essayists and
promoters, always arguing geography’s case rigorously.
Bill Mead, an academic geographer, seemed ever present, thoughtful, kind and challenging
into his 90s. I met him first on a visit from school to the RGS for a Monday night lecture in
1965; he sought out our school group and was most thoughtful and supportive, always
interested in young and new geographers, a real friend to geographers. He is missed.
Another academic geographer, Mike Bradford was inspiring, always gentle, ever enquiring
about colleagues and offering excellent advice without seeming to do so. He was a real
bridge between higher education and geography education, not least because of his interest
in children’s geographies. He is also much missed.
It has been a privilege to know and work with these colleagues and many others in and
through the GA across the years.
Coda
However, the most important thing as a past President of the GA is to honour and thank the
staff of the GA Headquarters office, who have provided invaluable, exemplary and ever-
present support over the past few decades that I have been involved in the GA. During my
Presidential year they were superb. Much has changed in the way the GA works since I
became involved in 1975 and particularly since I began chairing committees in the 1980s. I
have contributed to some of these developments, in small part, from time to time. The staff
have always been there for us all, have provided the service we needed and ensured in the
kindest ways that we followed up on what we committed ourselves and the Association to
do. During my involvement I have seen the publications of the GA burnished and prosper
hugely to the Associations’ benefit. The publications staff do an amazing job getting out
three journals and the members’ magazine three times a year, and a wide variety of topical
and significant publications to support and enable primary and secondary teachers to keep
improving and developing geography teaching, as well as now keeping us up-to-date
digitally. The publications are of the highest quality and are envied by other subject
associations and many national publishers. Through good and rough times the GA staff have
been and remain our mainstay.

Questionnaire produced by Alan Parkinson, July 2019