Contact

Chair: Helen Martin

Twitter: GA Early Years and Primary Phase Committee

Our aims

The Early Years and Primary Phase Committee (EYPPC) seeks to support and promote primary school geography for all teachers and learners. Our committee is chaired by Helen Martin and our Vice Chair is Sharon Witt, who both bring skills and experience to the group. Our members of the committee include teachers, headteachers, lecturers from teacher training and consultant geographers. We are always keen to hear of new interested educators who may be keen to join us. We meet three times a year and ensure that the primary pathway at the GA Annual Conference is well represented by our members.

Our committee is split into four working teams, who focus on the strategic aims of the GA and support primary practitioners. These teams are:

• Our Values Team- ensuring that our committee works strategically and with systems and organisation in place.
• Our Curriculum Spotlight team- this team takes the most current curriculum developments and ensures that there is current, high quality support for teachers and students.
• Our Important Issues team- this team takes the most current national and international issues and provides support for teachers to incorporate these into their teaching and learning.
• Our GeogLive team- this team is working on disseminating our ideas and the work and publications of the GA through regular live webinars, publications and articles in the Primary Geography journal.

We represent the membership of Primary teachers of the GA to ensure that we plan, develop, write and publish high quality geography outcomes for all children.

What we do

• We work proactively on behalf of teachers and learners of primary geography by being involved in a variety of activities, conferences, CPD, consultations and steering groups.
• We disseminate high quality and innovative primary geography through publications and conferences and focus ideas on skills, knowledge, understanding, excitement and fun it can offer every child.
• We promote the Primary Geography Quality Mark and GA publications for Early Years and Primary teachers.
• Through our Facebook, Twitter feed and our live webinars, we share ideas, teaching practice and innovative research and thinking within the primary age range.
• We champion geography at a national level through requests for information and advice, including DfE consultations.
• We host lectures, workshops, informal meetings and a Welcome Reception at the GA Annual Conference to share practice and teaching ideas, in which all members of the primary geographical community are welcome to attend and participate.
• We actively participate in research in primary geography and share these findings in GA publications including Primary Geography, GA Magazine and through our Twitter feed. Primary Geography subscribers can view a recent article by the Early Years and Primary Phase Committee here.

Primary Committee Members

The committee is comprised of classroom teachers, lecturers, teacher educators and geography activists who regularly give their time voluntarily, meeting at least once a term to discuss regular matters such as conferences, and upon matters affecting the national curriculum in the primary sphere.