Back to school after the Christmas break, for the start of another year of teaching.
My 33rd I believe. In that time... how has school geography changed?
After a year of meetings, evidence gathering and face to face consultations, Becky Francis's review of Curriculum and Assessment was published. Remember the 5th of November?
It was subtitled 'Building a world-class curriculum for all". (PDF download from this link)
Geography was described as being much improved.
"The real-world focus of the Geography curriculum is one of its key strengths, allowing young people to gain significant insights into contemporary world issues and evaluate potential solutions to pressing global challenges."
With regard to numerous suggestions that there was too much content at GCSE and lots of repetition:
"We therefore recommend light-touch attention to the Geography Programme of Study and GCSE subject content to remove unnecessary repetition and update content to support greater use of contemporary, local and representative case studies and contexts."
With regards to fieldwork, there were suggestions to:
"...clarify and strengthen how fieldwork is embedded within the curriculum, showing how it connects to other geographical skills and knowledge. Changes should remain proportionate. Great care should be taken not to inadvertently create access problems for socio-economically disadvantaged students based on geographical location or the potential costs associated with fieldwork trips and resources."
And on climate change:
"The purpose of study in the national curriculum should be amended to ensure explicit wording, empowering the next generation of geographers to understand and tackle climate change through suitable climate education."
The final Geography recommendations from the review were fairly brief after all that:
We recommend that the Government:
Makes minor refinements to the Geography Programmes of Study and GCSE subject content to respond to the issues identified, including by:
• Refining content to support progression better to further study, deepen children and young people’s understanding of key geographical concepts, make content more relevant and inclusive, and remove unnecessary repetition across topics.
• Embedding disciplinary knowledge more explicitly at Key Stage 3, such as geographical enquiry, spatial reasoning, use of digital tools, human geography and use of evidence, to ensure all children and young people have access to high-quality geographical education.
Clarifying and reinforcing requirements for fieldwork to demonstrate its role more effectively in supporting content and the developing of disciplinary knowledge, ensuring changes remain proportionate and inclusive.
Embeds climate change and sustainability more explicitly across different key stages, including across the physical geography, geographical applications and human geography sections of the curriculum, ensuring early, coherent, and more detailed engagement with climate education. This should be done without risking curriculum overload.
The DfE published its response to the report on the same day. (PDF download)
On Geography, they said: (p.32)
"We agree with the Review that the subject does not need significant change, and we will update and refine the programme of study and GCSE subject content with modest changes, to support pupils and teachers. As recommended, changes will support a better understanding of the disciplinary requirements in the national curriculum and in the GCSE, ensure the content is updated where needed, including in relation to climate education, and clarify and integrate the fieldwork requirements. We will also improve the GCSE subject content to support better progression, deepen understanding and remove unnecessary repetition across topics."
In October 2025, an opportunity to tender appeared to select some people who would be involved in the next phase of the development, who would guide the DfE in their next steps....
Image: Alan Parkinson
In December, just before Christmas the names of the "suppliers' for this step were revealed.
At this point I want to introduce an idea shared by the late Sir Ken Robinson. He was awarded the Joy Tivy Education Medal by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 2018.
Here's a list of the recipients of this prestigious award... I'll just leave it here...
Sir Ken suggested in this video which is from his TED Talk “Bring on the Learning Revolution”, that we need to disenthrall ourselves from from old ideas and which we take for granted, and that we need to move with the times.
For this reason, I disagree a little with this part of the DfE's response to the curriculum review.
".. the subject does not need significant change, and we will update and refine the programme of study and GCSE subject content with modest changes, to support pupils and teachers."
I think the subject (as far as the curriculum goes, which for many schools then becomes the subject experience for students) needs quite significant change if it is to appropriately prepare all young people for the world they will enter on leaving compulsory education, and make the most of KS3 in particular - the phase which all students will take, before they opt for exam subjects.
Becky Francis's report had this section remember:
• Embedding disciplinary knowledge more explicitly at Key Stage 3, such as geographical enquiry, spatial reasoning, use of digital tools, human geography and use of evidence, to ensure all children and young people have access to high-quality geographical education.
Some of those young people will have dropped geography at the end of Year 9. This is something that I can't countenance myself... but can imagine why: they don't see themselves in the subject, or they think it is harder than some of the other options.
It will (hopefully) come as no surprise to anyone who has heard me speak in the last ten years or so that I am very much in favour of losing quite a bit of the existing curriculum as the reason it is there is generally historical and the world has changed significantly in the time I have been working in schools. Some of it is simply not important to know...
I am not certain that quite a bit of what we teach is still powerful in its nature. This is connected to the idea of powerful knowledge / knowledge-rich curriculum: both persistent ideas....
This collection of essays has been attracting some attention recently, and David Didau's summary of the resource is equally helpful - thanks to Rob Chambers for the tipoff to that particular summary of some of the key themes. I've read quite a few of the essays: notably Christine Counsell, who is also involved in the review of Northern Ireland's curriculum, led by Lucy Crehan (oh, and Scotland are in a review cycle for their Curriculum for Excellence as well).
I have been working on creating curriculum resources for some time now - almost 20 years in fact - and last year worked with Paula Owens to produce some detailed curriculum thinking for one organisation; and also worked on the new Collins KS3 series which is forthcoming, called "Discover Geography", based on a curriculum outline developed by Mark Enser.
I also worked as author and subject reviewer on the Oak KS1-3 Curriculum project, which produced hundreds of lessons for use in schools, so I have some previous form, plus all the work I completed as part of the Action Plan for Geography Team, and on the Young People's Geographies project.
As part of all of that work I have thought about what new knowledge should be introduced and what can be removed to make space for it... a spot of disenthrallment.
And finally, keep an eye out for details of a new book, to be published by Bloomsbury on the theme of curriculum development. I shall share more details once it appears on their website.
Comments