The government’s Curriculum and Assessment Review, including its response, makes it clear that the current system is not working equally well for all young people. As a former Director of Inclusion, this resonates with me. While the review aims for “evolution rather than revolution”, its findings raise important questions for geography as both a subject discipline and a school experience.
As geography teachers and leaders, we need to understand both the potential opportunities and the risks hidden within this reform narrative. We need to be hopeful in the belief that our wonderful subject is highly relavant and will adapt, whilst keeping our eyes onthe bigger picture. This is something that the subject associations should be driving.
This post will focus on geography.
✅ What the Review Gets Right
The report highlights several priorities that should benefit geography:
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Breadth matters – The review calls for a broad, balanced curriculum that reflects a changing world. Geography is uniquely placed to address climate, globalisation, inequality and spatial change. How this conflicts with a reduction in the burden.
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Curriculum relevance – The emphasis on digital, AI, and global issues aligns with the real-world, contemporary nature of geography.
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Assessment reform – Acknowledging that current high-stakes exams narrow learning could create space for richer disciplinary thinking and enquiry.
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Equity and access – Persistent attainment and participation gaps are finally being named. Geography has long struggled with uneven uptake, especially among disadvantaged learners. Geography is a difficult academic subject and how it is presented and explores abstract concepts needs to be thought through.
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Subject expertise matters – The review points toward the need for teacher judgement, not just compliance. Geography is strengthened when geographers shape the curriculum, by being geographers in education (Puttick)
🧠Cocurricular Enrichment: Geography’s Natural Leadership Space
If schools are pushed toward a broader definition of curriculum, geography is exceptionally well placed to lead. Fieldwork, GIS, global debates, eco-initiatives, Model UN, community mapping, sustainability projects, geopolitics clubs, climate literacy workshops — these are not “extras”, they are cocurricular: extensions of our disciplinary purpose beyond the classroom. The sucesses that students in my departments experienced, where there left with qualifications and qualities, ensured that all students were involved in these projects. They were part of the planned curriculum, not an extra.
Geography already has:
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natural links to citizenship, science, maths, politics, economics, and ethics
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a tradition of learning that takes students into the world, not just about it
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ready-made routes into place-based learning, student agency and real-world impact
If the system begins to value “whole education”, geography should not wait to be invited — it should model what cocurricular learning looks like when it is driven by disciplinary purpose, not bolt-on activity.
This is an opportunity for geography to claim national leadership in showing what it means to extend curriculum, not add to workload.
⚠️ Unintended Consequences We Must Watch For
However, reform always comes with risk — especially where policy meets accountability pressure.
| Intended Reform Aim | Possible Unintended Effect on Geography |
|---|---|
| Slimming curriculum content | Geography further squeezed or reduced in KS3 |
| Greater focus on “knowledge” | Enquiry and thinking geographically downgraded |
| Relevance to future skills | Tokenistic climate/AI add-ons, not embedded geography |
| New forms of assessment | Standardised measures that don’t value enquiry |
| Reducing workload | Actually increases workload if poorly implemented |
| Teacher agency protected | Agency lost if changes become compliance-led |
One of the biggest risks is the emergence of false binaries — the same ones that already limit subject-led curriculum design:
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knowledge versus skills
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content coverage versus depth
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direct instruction versus enquiry
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exam success versus powerful disciplinary thinking
The truth? Geography needs all of these, in balance.
Geographical knowledge includes proceedural aspects. These are unque to geography and are knowledge: they shoudl form a core part of a knowledge curriculum.
🌍 What This Means for Geography Departments
Now is the moment for geography leaders to:
✅ Re-assert geography’s disciplinary value — spatial thinking, enquiry, real-world relevance
✅ Protect curriculum time by linking geography to national priorities (climate, global literacy, sustainability, digital mapping)
✅ Argue for assessment that reflects how geographers think, not just what they recall
✅ Make the case that students don’t just learn geography — they learn through geography to understand the world
✅ Reclaim teacher agency: geography should be shaped by geographers, not accountability spreadsheets
If we do nothing, geography will be done to us.
If we act now, geography can help shape the future curriculum.
đź“š Want to explore how enquiry can structure the whole geography curriculum?
I discuss this in more depth in my book The Power of Geographical Enquiry
👉 https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/power-of-geographical-enquiry-9781801994941/
✊ Final Thought
Policy may set conditions.
Accountability may set pressure.
But teachers set the quality of the curriculum.
I was once told that teachers set the weather in their classrooms. Do that often enough and it becomes the climate.
Geography doesn’t just fit into the new curriculum conversation — it is essential to it.
The only question is whether we speak up loudly enough.
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