I happened across the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)’s consultation documents this week. That’s not a promising start for a story, but I hope it gets more interesting at some stage!

I think the QAA offers universities a combination of exam board specification and OFSTED role for secondary schools – though I’m happy to be corrected on this. While I think they are potentially less prescriptive than an exam spec, allowing universities more flexibility to design a course reflecting their interests, values and experience of their teaching staff, they nonetheless seem to want to explore and identify a sense of what does it mean to “do a Geography degree” with all the potential routes that offers. Hence, the QAA quality codes, and the documents that are drafted for review. I’ve also looked at the one for Environmental/Earth Sciences, just out of mild curiosity.

• QAA Consultation Document, Geography

• QAA Consultation Document, Earth & Environmental Sciences

• OFSTED Subject Research Review, Geography

The key thing that struck me, reading some of these sections, is the practical and philosophical variance between this outlined approach, and the recent OFSTED Research Review Series for Secondary Geography. There are some really interesting contrasts, and lovely things to share – and I wanted to pull out some key thoughts and highlights to share with a wider secondary audience, centred around:

1. The purpose of Geography
2. The legacy of colonialism in the discipline of Geography
3. The graduated approach and wider sense of progression model thinking

What is the purpose of Geography?

A major intellectual task within the subject is to encompass the diversity of contexts and the different types of knowledge that inform the study of environments and societies, and the interactions between the two, at a range of scales. Consequently, Geography programmes encourage holistic thinking across social and natural sciences, arts and humanities. They provide the intellectual foundations, tools and practical experience to enable graduates to integrate and apply a variety of fields of knowledge and forms of enquiry and to gather and evaluate evidence in the creation of innovative, inclusive and equitable solutions. Geography courses also develop a range of personal attributes, geocapabilities and skills with applied, real-world relevance beyond higher education. Geography is a STEM subject, and its courses produce graduates who use their geospatial awareness and data science, mapping and modelling skills to lead the response to the UK’s emerging economic and strategic priorities. As such, Geography courses produce graduates who are well placed to help identify and address environmental and social challenges at a range of scales. The specialist research skills provided by Geography courses also make geographers adept at assessing risks, considering ethics and participating in civic engagement. This leads to a rewarding, self-determined professional life.

QAA Consultation Document: (2021: 3)

I really like the wide range and ambitious statement of some of these disciplinary statements – there are plenty of schools who could draw inspiration from this in terms of forming their Department vision for Geography, and recognise the complexity and range.

But there’s an interesting and contestable statement about Geography as a STEM subject – wonder if this is funding related? – and it feels like a number of the more qualitative and experiential Geographies might be a little miffed at this characterization!

Legacies of Colonialism in Geography:

There are two really powerful paragraphs here, which I’d like to reproduce in full.

Contemporary geography draws from knowledge traditions formed through colonial enlightenment science. Geographical concepts and techniques contributed to the overseas expansion of British and European empires, which was justified using narratives of white, able and heteronormative superiority. Colonial and imperial geographies, and their contemporary legacies of systemic disadvantage, for example, racism, classism, disablism, homophobia and patriarchy, must therefore be acknowledged and countered by fostering an inclusive learning community encompassing a range of participants, such as students, academics, technicians, professional staff, visitors and external partners.

QAA Consultation Document (2021: 4)

What a powerful statement this is! How different to our tacit understanding of it at secondary level, but without the same head on confrontation of disciplinary legacy. In part, I think that reflects a university-level “community of practice” approach that is founded on disciplinary context and understanding. I remember studying (and writing about) my own studies of the “philosophy, nature and practice of Geography” at university, and how I had come to appreciate that disciplinary induction much more with distance and immersion.

Indeed, the QAA go on to note that:

Geographers have a critical understanding of the history of the subject, the social, cultural, economic and political context of past and present knowledge production; and the people and forms of knowledge excluded under conditions of coloniality. Central to this is a critical awareness of the discipline’s place within wider histories of colonialism and imperialism, meaning that Geographers possess a critical understanding of knowledge practices formed through colonial enlightenment science; the distinctive contributions the discipline made to this; related contemporary legacies of systemic disadvantage and injustice and the lived experience of this; and how the discipline can address these legacies. A geographical education requires that learners examine their own place in the world and the responsibilities this entails, recognising injustices and reflecting on ways to build inclusive, transformative practices of solidarity and justice. Decolonial approaches and practice provide a way to support this learning and reflection and foster anti-racist praxis within the learning community when integrated across the entire curricula.

QAA Consultation Document (2021: 11)

I really appreciate the ambition and coherence of this as a philosophical approach – to assess and understand the discipline as a constructed subject, with epistemic and ontologic positionalities that need to be explored. I wonder what a similar statement might look like for A Level Geography specifications, and hence, an ambition for secondary Geography?

What is excellent Geography?

Unlike the OFSTED report, which focuses on the discipline, the “exam board” bit of the QAA report also offers some standardisation language, and gives a sense of what good Geography graduates may go on to do. There’s an awful lot of excellent thinking about skills, attributes, teaching & learning approaches (and fieldwork) to be recommended.

I’ve shown some examples of their benchmark standards here, but I strongly recommend you read the full report for fuller thinking.

Geography graduates that achieve excellence beyond the typical standard are distinguished primarily by superior intellectual skills, which are deployed in the context of wide-ranging knowledge of the various aspects of the subject. The strength of Geography’s methodological breadth is most clearly demonstrated in its best graduates, who bring originality, insight and superior critical and reflective abilities to bear upon this knowledge, and have the capacity to link theory and practice in identifying and tackling research problems. This quality is evident across the spectrum of assessed work, but is perhaps most clearly demonstrated in independent work, especially dissertations, which may produce outcomes that are at or close to the levels of publishable research, and which represent an advance within subject knowledge.

QAA Consultation Document (2021: 18)

I really like the aspirations and synoptic approach here, and I think there’s a lot that both ITE providers and secondary colleagues alike could learn from this and apply to their own contexts.

Reflections:

I think one of the key differences in the QAA document is the sophisticated and nuanced way in which they recognise the plurality of pathways that specialist expertise will want to follow in developing a Geography curriculum at university level with 100% volunteer participants, smaller numbers, and fulltime specialist staff to deliver it. A lot of the “best bets” and pragmatic advice from the OFSTED guidance is neither present, nor needed.

I really liked the collaborative and pluralistic views from the QAA compared to the OFSTED approach – something I know others have already written on. It feels very much more advanced in scholarship and decolonialism, and the sense of there being many Geographies available to study and explore. There are some strong statements about the utilization of colonial enlightenment science which are really not echoed at secondary level – and I think this is a big part of the conversation that we should be having at the connective layers.

This, I think, is perhaps my biggest query, and one that requires much greater analysis and understanding of the process. I am left with two powerful questions:

1. To what extent do the QAA and OFSTED approaches join up?
2. To what extent should they? Recognising the very different contexts, and how they work, should we have “cradle to grave” ambition for the disciplinary coherence, or is that unnecessarily complex (or over simplification) for something that is fundamentally very different in place and study.

This has been a really powerful document to read – both in terms of my thinking as a former secondary HoD, but also in terms of starting to think about the ITE and Geography Education spaces – about what our subject offers. Restricting the view only to secondary level OFSTED reviews offers one perspective, and I’d strongly recommend that Geographers at all levels have a look at this document, and see what they might learn or how it might shape their thinking.

A tweeted reply to someone’s bad day, where I shared a story from my past experience, got quite a sympathetic response, so I thought I’d share the full story.

Let’s start with some context. I was in my early thirties, and had only just started as a new Head of Geography at a new school. It was my first middle leadership job, and early in the term – perhaps the third weekend in September? – the Open Morning season began. Like a number of schools in the area, we held ours on a Saturday morning, and I was going in with the aim of being impressive. Obviously.

My parents were visiting London that weekend, too. And, over dinner on Friday night, my Mum raised the idea of whether they could come in too. It’d be nice if she could see the school, she said, because then she’d have a good idea of what I was talking about when we spoke on the phone.

Mums, as we know, never want to stop looking after their little babies.  

However, I knew that I’d be working a lot. The Open Morning was advertised from 9-12, but realistically we’d need to be in classrooms from about 8.45, so that we were ready.

We made a plan. I’d go in *very* early – which is what I was going to do anyway, for set up – and Mum & Dad could come with me. I’d show them round, while no-one was in, and then they would head off to the nearby Horniman Museum, where there was a world-famous walrus, and a café, and all would be well. They should come back by about 12.30, when we’d be all packing up, and we could come home together.

So it went. I showed them the Department, the classrooms, talked about what we were doing, we looked at Open Day resources. They saw the shared office, met some of the early bird team mates, and we were on our way out towards the main exit, when we saw the Head coming down the corridor. Also fairly new in post, he was checking that all was as it should be.

Not wanting to appear rude, I introduced my parents to him “up in London for the weekend, thought they’d like to see” etc.

“Hello”, said my Mum. “I’m David’s Mum. How’s he settling in? Has he made friends, and done well?”

Mums, as we know, never want to stop looking after their little babies.  

The Head was amused and wonderfully kind. I was mentally drafting a resignation. Mortified, we moved away, and I gently escorted them out to start their plans.

Were it to end there, my day would have been a fairly strange tale. Reader, it does not.

My parents are, it seems, incapable of a number of things, but prime amongst them is rudeness. That also, naturally, includes being late for anything. Ever.

The school was running a system on Open Days where visiting parents, children (and often, extended family, who’d turned it in to an outing) were paired with a Sixth Form student and a Year 7 student, who’d give them a tour of the school. If you went anticlockwise, you’d start in the Geography Department, before going to the hall. If you went clockwise, that’s where you’d finish. When someone walked through the door, they were paired up and the tour began fairly quickly – a pretty slick system was in place, particularly by about 11.15 when we were in full flow.

Ah yes. Noticed the time, did you?

We’d agreed a return of about 12.30 pm, so that my parents could miss the rush of incoming guests.

My parents didn’t get that memo. They arrived at about 11.15, walked through the front door – as you do – and were immediately swept up in the machine. They were allocated to a tour with a Sixth Former that I taught, and a Year 7 that I taught, and a random family with a child. I’m assuming that they thought my parents were the grandparents, and I’m guessing that everyone was being terribly polite and not saying “so, who are you?” and so on.

And, like I said. Incapable of being rude. So my Mum will have gone along with it, brightly and cheerfully, and no doubt nudged my Dad to keep quiet as the tour progressed in a clockwise direction.

But, by about the three-quarters point of the tour, the penny’s starting to drop for the guides. The child isn’t talking to the grandparents? The parents aren’t talking to the grandparents? Do these guys even know each other?

And so it turns out that, as they were walking from History towards Geography, the Sixth Former in charge of the tour plucks up the courage to start asking a little bit more about these random people in their 60s.

“So, you guys are not a family?”

No, they agreed. They were not.

“Do you have a child who’s interested in coming to the school?”

No, they said. They did not. They did, however, have a child already at the school.

Now, my Department is fairly popular at the best of times, and we’d got some interactive games going on, and it was a busy room and place. In addition, a bunch of my Sixth Form tutor group – many prefects, or involved in running things, had decided to come and congregate in the rooms as the morning was coming to a close.

The tour group arrive into this Department scene, right at the denouement of a quite frankly Sorkin-esque walk and talk.

“Oh, you have a child at the school already? What year are they in?”

“Oh no”, says my Mum. “He’s the Head of Geography, over there”

The Sixth Form guide actually squealed. A gentle hush fell across the room. She ran over to the rest of the Sixth Form group, and whispered excitedly and with great animation.

“No way! Sir’s parents?”

“Sir, you have parents?”

Oh.

Oh.

There were Sixth Formers on their phones, texting, requesting selfies with my parents. There were people coming in from other Departments to say hi.

For weeks: “I met your Mum, sir”. For years afterwards: “Are your parents coming to Open Day, sir?”

Mums, as we know, never want to stop looking after their little babies.