Whisper it not, in a subject focus on geography, but there are pupils who find the subject boring. And they’re right! says David Lambert, the new chief executive of the Geographical Association - and the first actual geographer to take up this position.

Volcanoes, population, riversI the same topics come round again and again as students climb through the year groups, and are often delivered in an unimaginative way. Yet Lambert believes passionately that geography is “a wonderful vehicle for education” and aims to wake up the education world to its possibilities.

So how come some geography classrooms are so dull? He believes the launch of the national curriculum, coupled with the culture of tests and accountability, created a climate where teachers came to believe they were not free to take risks. As a result, much of its delivery has become descriptive and outdated.

“Geography is about difference, distance and diversity. It’s about learning to grow up in a busy, booming, complicated world,” he says. It embraces both physical and social issues, is a great way into citizenship, and should not shy away from difficult questions of politics and race. In fact, he thinks it is such a brilliant subject that it is “scandalous” that while specialist colleges are being developed in subject areas from languages to technology, there is no provision for specialist humanities colleges where subjects such as geography and history could be king. So it looks like the GA can expect a shake-up as he moves to Sheffield this month to take up its reins, especially since, with membership dropping from a peak in the mid-1990s and three chief executive officers in as many years, it has not had the happiest recent history.

The Association was formed to further the teaching and study of geography, and has about 10,000 members, although many are whole school departments, so the real head count could be more like 15,000. It has 40 regional branches, a staff of 25 at its offices in Sheffield, and puts out a wide range of publications including the journals Geography, Teaching Geography and Primary Geography, as well as books and resources. But Lambert has a lengthy agenda for change. He wants to encourage the organisation to be more open, to attract more primary and young secondary teachers as members, support the professional development of teaching, and be active on the policy front. “I expect to be in and out of the DfES and places like that,” says Lambert. He also wants to make the most of the many volunteer hours given by members to the Association. “Too often you can get a situation where a committee’s main role has come to be servicing that committee.”

Everything in his background will help him do this. He did a first degree at Newcastle, and his teacher training at Cambridge, and worked in comprehensive schools for a dozen years, rising to be a deputy head, before moving to London University’s Institute of Education to lecture in geography education.

In the early 1990s, he was involved in the development of the Cambridge Geography Project, a series for key stage 3 (which won the TES’s 1992 school book of the year award), and was awarded his doctorate for research on the concept of prejudice in geographical education.

He has co-ordinated the Institute’s PGCE course for secondary geography teachers, and led the country’s only full MA in geography education, as well as co-authored books on assessment, and on geography and citizenship education.

Now, at 50, Lambert is aware that this new job is a big leap out of the comfortable armchair of academia into the choppy waters of the unknown. But things, he says, were taking him “too far away from geography” and this job offered the chance to get back to its heartland. He sees his new role as more strategic than administrative.

“I want to support existing teachers, support the geography community, and help improve the communication between school and higher education, between school and school, and between teacher and teacher,” he says. He also wants the Association to be involved in research projects and consultations, both to promote good geography and to create “another income stream” for the organisation.

As for livening up the classroom, he wants to spread the word on exciting teaching, and make new research available to members “in a digestible way”, as well as helping develop better networks.

“Teachers operate in a number of settings, in their department, their school, their local education authority, and beyond that,” says Lambert.

However he sees hopeful signs that the mood of the times is now swinging behind what he wants to do. “I believe very strongly that in the next five to 10 years we are going to see a bout of renewed energy in curriculum development.”

If that means throwing out crusty old favourites, such as a model of urban development based on Chicago in the 1920s, in favour of stronger links with other subjects, and lessons that challenge and encourage students to make geographical sense of their own lives and experiences, then David Lambert, for one, will be a very happy man.

www.geography.org.uk