I’m delighted that today marks a month since my contribution to the Sherrington/Hachette series Secondary Geography in Action was published. I have been thrilled to see it in different places and teachers getting their copies.

One of the great privileges and challenges of the work that I do in teacher education is to recognise the diversity of the subjects community and how it compares to Geography as a discipline. I don’t think I had the time and headspace to understand that whilst I was in schools!

Some subjects have very different day to day experiences, support and literature – or limited access to subject associations and partners – whilst others have incredibly strong networks to draw upon.

Some subjects are dominated by hierarchical knowledge and commonly agreed conceptual frameworks – where almost every school in the country will teach the same material in the same order, and probably in the same way. Others have a contested and constructed curriculum, where each context will make deliberate decisions about what’s right for them and in what sequence.

So, in writing the book, I wanted to acknowledge the huge legacy of brilliant work that has gone before in our subject and community. We have a powerful literature and evidence-informed thinking across the range of our discipline, and some brilliant work and writers who have investigated key areas of it in depth. That’s why you’ll see lots of references and “recommended reads” in SGIA – a constant reminder of the awesome landscape we sit in.

I’m also hugely mindful of the variety and choices that geography teachers make all the time. Whether we’re picking topics, sequences, case studies or examples, or responding in the moment to the changing and challenging context we face in local and national landscapes, we are iterating and making decisions that serve the best interests of our students. I have a limited view on this, and I don’t have all the answers – which is why I’ve been delighted to invite contributions and conversations from others, and why I I hope I don’t make too many declarative statements! I talk about this in the ‘debates’ chapter, and explore some of the issues that I think we face at critical moments ahead of the Curriculum Review in our subject.

I hope the book offers a handy overview of the terrain we occupy – and gives you confidence to go off in different directions and find the paths that you need to. I hope that it does justice to the incredible authors, thinkers, contributors and communities of practice that I’ve benefited from over my career. I hope it’s been useful and practical – I’d love to hear feedback, or for you to share what you’re taking away from it, or write a review to support others.

Most of all, I hope it helps move you towards action in a way that supports, encourages and promotes wellbeing and sustainable teaching careers in geography. I hope it gives you inspiration and confidence in the decisions you are able to make as a geography teacher, and how you can make a difference to your students understanding of our subject and our world!