'How to Live on Earth'

Benedict Cumberbatch has explored some hopeful geographical stories for a new documentary which is now available to view on YouTube.

There are some accompanying teacher resource and other materials to download if you are interested in using some sections with students.

EFL Showcase - 8th-9th September

EFL stands for Enhancing Fieldwork Learning in this event. 

The EFL project team coordinates an annual Showcase event that brings together fieldwork educators from a range to disciplines to share innovations in field teaching and learning with a particular focus on the use of technology.

I last attended and spoke some years ago, talking about our work on Mission:Explore.

The 16th Enhancing Fieldwork Learning Showcase will focus on the theme of ‘Bridging the Divide’. 

The free Showcase Event will be held on 8-9th September 2026. 

The hybrid event will be in-person at the University of Southampton and broadcast online.

"We are pleased to confirm two Keynote speakers – Dr Nicholas Worsfold (Brunel University) and Alan Parkinson (King’s Ely Prep School / Royal Geographical Society) – who will speak about their experiences of bridging the divide from school to HE in addition to reflecting on how AI can be used most effectively in bridging digital and real world learning." 

There will also be opportunities to trial innovative survey and field sensing technologies with Environmental Sensing @ Southampton: https://esas.soton.ac.uk/.

The provisional programme is now available: EFL-Showcase-2026-programme-v3. 

Please register for online and in-person attendance here: https://forms.gle/nnefo7F7pLxRNdiS6

Whatever happened to the Geography Pages?

At the PTI earlier in the week, a colleague from Norfolk asked about my GeographyPages and what happened to it.

This was one of the most visited geography websites in the world for a while... when there weren't many out there...

As it happens, in 2013, I decided I wasn't going to update it further and move to concentrate on my blogs - particularly this one.

Check out the various activities that Rich organises, which includes a range of websites...

Powerful knowedge in the classroom

A new book was added to the library of books made freely available by UCL Press at the end of last week. The books are available on the UCL Press website, and JSTOR.

The latest books is about bringing powerful knowledge into the classroom.

The geography chapter has been written by Dr. Alex Standish. It explores the curriculum thinking of two heads of department, who consider how knowledge is explored in their classrooms.

It's a fairly short chapter and is worth a read.

Fawcett Fellowship 2026-7

Applications are now open to be a Fawcett Fellow for 2026-27.

I was a Fawcett Fellow in 2022-23. There is funding for a year of meetings with other teachers - discussions and writing and further research.

You can find out more details here.

Fiona Sheriff has written about her time as a Fawcett Fellow, and if you search for that term here on LivingGeography you'll find what I have written about it on the blog.

RGS support through Curriculum change

The latest news update from the RGS sets out some of the support that the RGS will be providing once we reach the next stage of the Curriculum and Assessment Review (CAR). 

From the RGS Schools team:

We’ve been actively involved in the Curriculum and Assessment Review and welcome many of the recommendations, but now they need to be put into practice.

We will be reviewing the new curriculum carefully and plan to respond to the consultation, drawing on the expertise of the geography teaching community and our members and Fellowship.

We need your input, insights and expertise. Your contributions so far in this process have been invaluable.

For the September consultation, you can:Join our focus groups – discuss the proposed curriculum changes by joining one of our online focus groups (exact dates will be published once the consultation is live). You can register your interest in attending now and we will contact you once the groups have been arranged.

Complete our survey – we will share the key questions for geography on our website so you can provide your input to us directly. We’ll draw on these to inform our response. More details will follow when the consultation is live.

Do you have any other comments to make? Please send us an email to responses@rgs.org. These will be picked up by the Education Team.

Getting curriculum ready

Look out for resources and webinars from the Society this autumn onwards to help you and your departments review your current provision, identify what needs to change and then develop new programmes of work.

We’ll have a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) framework for you and your departments to assess what you already have covered well, identify gaps, and prioritise areas for development.

We will also be creating new resources mapped out against the new requirements, as well as offering CPD (Continuing Professional Development) to support you in new areas or where changes are greatest.

If there is other support you think teachers or students will require, please let us know.

International Geography Training - iGCSE Geography - with Matt Podbury and me

Last year, I was the Series Editor of a new book published by Collins for the Cambridge iGCSE Geography syllabus (0460). 

This was for the newly updated version of the syllabus, which put the content back into Human and Physical Geography examinations and changed the nature of the skills element of the assessment. 

I ensured that there were new contexts and case studies which were not the 'usual' ones. I am very pleased with how it turned out.

The book is accompanied by a Workbook and a Teacher Guide to help explain how to teach the course.

My own school offers the iGCSE Geography, and my colleague Matt Norbury was very useful when scoping out the book's structure, and my colleague Claire Kyndt was one of the authoring team.

Please take a look at the book if you are teaching this specification - there are a lot of people who do in countries across the world, and this is worth adopting for your classroom. Why not buy a copy to see whether it's a good fit for your school?

The iGCSE Geography course is very popular globally as I said, but there are relatively few CPD opportunities for teachers who teach the course.

Richard Allaway and Matt Podbury both work in international schools which offer the specification are organising a series of courses for iGCSE Geography. They have over 35 years of teaching experience between them.

Richard runs the website GeographyalltheWay.

Matt runs the website GeographyPods.

They have teamed up to create International Geography Training. This offers webinars and other sessions.

The full range of courses that they are offering can be seen here.

They have brought in various experts to co-run some of the courses for the 2026-2027 academic year, including Jonathan Butcher from the British School of Milan.

In December, Matt Podbury and I are running a course together designed for teachers who are about to teach the course for the first time, but which would also be useful for anyone who is relatively new to the new syllabus - which is most teachers.

It's a way off yet, but worth getting in your diaries.

Details here:

Booking details are here.

The first of two 90-minute sessions is led by Matt and focuses on adapting your delivery for the new Cambridge 0460/0976 syllabus. He works through what has changed and what has stayed the same between 2026 and 2027, sequencing decisions and pace of delivery, doorstep geography opportunities and case studies, free online IGCSE Geography resources, and planning fieldwork visits with effective fieldwork questions.

The second session brings views and key advice from textbook author Alan Parkinson. Discover the print and online resources that work hardest for the new course, the case studies that bring it to life, and practical ways to embed the ‘and sustainable’ requirement across your curriculum rather than treating it as a bolt-on.

Leave with a clear opening-months roadmap, vetted resources, and practical answers to the questions every first-time IGCSE Geography teacher meets.

It's organised so that it is accessible to people in different key locations around the world.

See you there?