New iGCSe textbook - author copies arrived

Good to see this arrive, and put it on the shelves of the GeoLibrary. 

Well, it was over a year ago that we started work on the 4th edition of the Collins textbook to support the teaching of the updated Cambridge iGCSE Geography specification (0460). I worked with an excellent authoring team - who stepped up early on when it was reduced from the original size.

Over the weekend, author copies of the book finally arrived. It's always good to have the physical object in your hands. 

The cover is a little 'minimalist' for my liking but is the style used for a range of books for other subjects published by Collins.

There were a lot of people involved in the production of the book including the author team who stepped up when we lost two authors early in the process. There have been many hundreds of hours of working on edits and updates and several drafts and proofs. 

The textbook will be accompanied by a Teacher Guide and a Workbook.

These are due to be published in April I believe. They are printed in the UK on responsibly sourced paper using vegetable-based inks.

It covers the new iGCSE Specification (and related qualifications) and has been approved by Cambridge University Press and Assessment as meeting the requirements of the Cambridge Pathway. This is important as it ensures that the book fully covers the specification and assessment requirements.

Feel free to order an inspection copy or one to have on your shelves even if you aren't teaching this qualification / specification. And if you ARE teaching it, then you obviously need to purchase large quantities of the books. The Workbooks look particularly nice and very useful to support learners.

The book is published by Collins (in 2025 of course)

Paperback, 368pp

ISBN: 978-0-00-872576-1

Price: £28.99

iGCSE Geography - 4th edition textbook now available to order

A project that I've been involved in for over a year will finally see the light of day soon and the first of the three books has just become available and ready for ordering from the Collins website.

It's the 4th edition of a textbook for the newly updated iGCSE Geography specification. 

I was involved with the first edition while working for the Geographical Association.

Along with this student book - the 4th edition, written for the new Cambridge iGCSE Geography specification, there is also a Teacher's Guide, which contains lesson plans and extra resources, plus answers for all the questions in the book.

There is also a Workbook which has been written by Becky Kitchen. This contains extra work on iGCSE Skills along with exam style questions and other activities.

These other two books will be out in April.

I'm proud to have worked as a Series Editor on the three books in the series.

Special thanks to my fellow authors John Rutter, Rob Bircher, Becky Kitchen and my colleague Claire Kyndt.

Thanks also to Cathy, Roisin, Letitia and particularly Lucy from Collins, and others involved in copy editing and design. It's been a team effort.

Thanks also to Cambridge for their prompt and helpful feedback.

I'm looking forward to seeing the first hard copies.

If you're at the GA Conference in April, go and see the Collins stand in the exhibition space and take a look - I shall be there on the Wednesday afternoon.

PTI Education Residential

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of heading for Downing College, University of Cambridge for this year's Prince's Teaching Institute Enrichment Residential to present a session.

I had been asked to speak to a group of geographers about fieldwork and my Presidential theme of the Everyday. I drew in my colleague and mentor Claire Kyndt to join me as we had been asked to lead a fieldwork session and I knew that she had plenty of experience, and was also feeding in the work she presented at the GA Conference on the work of the Dear Data project.

Here's the presentation we were used.

We were fortunate that we had a free Mela event setting up on Parker's Piece for the weekend, which added additional interest to the space, as well as options for food purchases.

Some pictures of the event, many taken from the Ferris wheel that was set up on Parker's Piece for the summer

Happy to answer any questions regarding the suggestions here. Delegates had access to a wide range of materials.

Claire and I had some very positive feedback about our contribution to the weekend.

Eight years done

It's hard for me to believe, but I finished my 8th year at King's Ely on Friday. I also said bye to a colleague who had been at the school for 33 years, and done 99 terms at the school.

I joined the school as a part time teacher to support the work of colleagues who had been changing and updating the curriculum and the department, and I'm grateful to Claire Kyndt for the original invitation to work at the school, having been inspired by our work with Mission:Explore and other projects.

After colleagues moved on, I stepped up to be full time, and also continue to lead the department at KS3 and also KS2. I've taught GCSE and A level as well, but now focus on the lower school.

We ended the year with a reduced version of our usual Prizegiving service and event. We had Luke Jerram's GAIA looking down on us from the nave...

Happy holidays, and I'll be back blogging our work in September.

Uganda Marathon charity

Over to the Cathedral for the mid-term service on Friday, and to hand over a cheque to a representative from the Uganda Marathon for over £23 000 !!!

It was lovely to see our Miss Kyndt up on the stage as she was one of the King's Ely runners who made their way over to Uganda earlier in the year, and braved the course.

We are very proud of what we've achieved as a school.

1000th post

Hi to anyone reading this...
I started this blog over four years ago, back in June 2013, when I had it confirmed that I would be returning to the classroom after a five year break working for the Geographical Association, Open University, and as a 'geographer for hire' across Europe.
The first substantive post shared all the resources and thinking behind the lesson I taught for my interview, on Wind Energy and landscape change

This is the 1000th post on the blog.

Use the search box to find ideas from my teaching over the last 4 and a bit years... There are resources and ideas here which are different to those over on my other blogs, such as LivingGeography, OCR B Geography etc. but with some cross-posting...