Engaging geography
vi. border crossings: geographies across universities and schools.

Outline
Once upon a time … university and pre-university geography were closely connected in the British system. Indeed, as recently as the mid-1980s university geographers played a central role in determining the old O and A level syllabi (both content and assessment). However, over the last twenty years pre-university geography has lost significant points of connection with post-18 geography …

This seminar hopes to cross the borders (Castree et al, 2007) between these different spheres of geographical education, and explore the potential for collaborative ventures that seek to embed a collective vision of (public) geography futures, taking inspiration from such ventures as the ‘Juicy Geography’, and ‘Living Geography’ initiatives.

Arrangements
Date: Saturday 13th November 2010
Venue: Soar Valley College, Leicester [link]
Registration costs: £0
Registration: please download and fill out the form available at http://engaginggeography.wordpress.com/2-seminars/2e-geographies-in-schools/ and send it in ASAP. This is also the application for travel bursaries.

Convenors: Kye Askins (Northumbria University), Gavin Brown (University of Leicester) & Simon Renshaw (Soar Valley College)

NB One key hope is to attract a mix of teachers, academics, educators and yes even some school and university students!! Thus we intend all speakers to keep to 15 – 20 min max to enable more lively debate …

Daily Planner
9.30–10.00: REGISTRATION

10.00–11.15: LESSON ONE: View from School
•	Noel Jenkins: Juicy Geography 
•	Young People’s Geographies project 
•	Soar Valley students: imagining university 
Each speaker/group has 15/20 mins then time to debate round room to raise some key issues for us so far …

11.15–11.30: MORNING BREAK

11.30–12.30: LESSON TWO: Across the divide
•	John Lyon: Geographical Association 
•	Steve Brace: Royal Geographical Society 
A conversation around enabling better conversations across the borders: 15/20mins talk from speakers on their organisations’ role and ambitions and practical projects/initiatives, then open up again to wider questions/discussion

12.30–1.00: LESSON THREE: Going back in … 
Geography Ambassador experiences (Leicester University students / school teachers of schools they went to)

1.00-2.00: LUNCH BREAK (Wet play if raining)

2.00-3.00: LESSON FOUR: Obvious overlaps ..?
•	Geography editor(s) outline journal vision/potential for better conversations across school/Uni 
•	Margaret Roberts on the role of teacher training 
15/20 mins each … and of course open up to Q&A / wider chat

3.00-4.00: LESSON FIVE: participant-directed learning time
Break out into small groups – to chat about what’s been covered and each group to identify/highlight/suggest
•	key themes emerging from their experiences/the day 
•	potential ways forward to continue finding/acting on points of connection 

4.00–4.30: FINAL LESSON
Feedback from groups and round up of day

4.30: HOME TIME
(Unless participants are sleeping over in Leicester, then we will see about a local restaurant excursion