Welcome to Geography. We are Mr Wood (Subject Leader) and Mr Thompson (Second in Department). We teach in rooms E107 and E108 in the Veolia ES Cleanaway Trust Building opened in May 2008.

Our aim to help to produce the concerned global citizens of the future by encouraging our students to engage with the world around them and to see their planet home as the truly wonderful (if troubled) place it is.

All students take geography as a subject for the first three years at the school. As a GCSE option geography remains very popular and oversubscribed.

KEY STAGE THREE

The KS3 curriculum has been redrawn to meet both the perceived educational needs of the learners at the Chafford and a growing social and economic understanding of what has been termed the global village. It is vital now that fourteen year-old students have knowledge of, and enthusiasm for, global issues and the events affecting the whole world. This is not to suggest that local geography should be disregarded. On the contrary it is in the local context that children first experience the world and we will continue to utilise and expand upon this inalienable truth.

We will also hope to emphasise what a truly wonderful place the earth is. Instilling a sense of awe and wonder will be a major thrust of teaching and learning. Encouraging children to appreciate and investigate their world is one of the most important things we do; too often in recent years we have neglected this in the rush to cement ultimately measurable knowledge and understanding.

Now seems a good time to at least begin to move away from this narrow way of working and thinking, and this curriculum represents a fairly modest first step. Our mission will be to help create lifelong geographers who fully engage with the world around them. There will be no lack of academic rigour here, just a bit more teaching and learning for its own sake, and for the love of the subject.

THE THREE-YEAR OUTLINE

The kernels of learning:

Skills= ‘We need these to study the subject and be geographers’

Global Issues= ‘We share certain problems that will have to be solved’

The Earth= ‘Our planet is a truly wonderful place’

Nearer Home= ‘We need to know our own local area before we can fully understand the world’

People and Places= ‘There are many ways in which the human race covers and uses the earth’

Developing Country Study= ‘We need to understand and appreciate places and cultures very different from our own.’

KEY STAGE FOUR: GCSE

We study the OCR Syllabus A at GCSE level over a two-year course.

This is an innovative course encompassing relevant and modern geography fit for the 21st century. It provides the opportunity to combine geographical, general and vocational elements of study in fresh and exciting ways, as well as the option to follow a more ‘academic’ geography course.

The specification contains one externally assessed unit that can be taken on screen or on paper as well as the opportunity for Controlled Assessment evidence to be submitted electronically via the OCR Repository. Two other written papers are taken over the two years. Candidates are entered for two levels of paper, FOUNDATION (grades C-G) and HIGHER (grades A*-D), depending on their ability and progress. The three exams amount to 75% of the assessed material, with the Controlled Assessment worth the other 25% of the final awarded grade.

Candidates who gain grades D-G will have achieved an award at Foundation Level 1 (Level 1 of the National Qualifications Framework) and those gaining grades A*-C will have achieved an award at Intermediate Level 2 (Level 2 of the NQF)

There are FOUR mandatory units, which are:

• EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS
• YOU AS A GLOBAL CITIZEN: THE IMPACT OF DECISIONS
• SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES
• ISSUES IN OUR FAST CHANGING WORLD

GIFTED AND TALENTED

Gifted and Talented geography students are identified through a ‘shadow’ register put together early each year by geography teachers, using evidence from CAT and Key Stage tests plus our internal assessments and personal evaluations within lessons.

Once identified these students receive extended work (often in the form of advanced research tasks) and ‘curriculum challenge’ work as part of the wider Gifted and Talented policy in the school. Recent challenges for G&T students have been:

• Study of climate change statistics to establish long-term trends
• Analysis of local and national crime statistics as they relate to geographical profiling
• Design of earthquake emergency plans for poor/developing communities and countries

EXTRA CURRICULAR

This year we will be taking year 7 and year 8 students to Rainham Marshes, where they will study local habitat conservation and learn how to take part in initiatives designed to protect species.

Havering’s Recycling in Schools programme will be coming to the Chafford. Operatives will introduce ideas of sustainability and personal responsibility for recycling household waste.

In December a small group of G&T GCSE students will take part in the Havering School’s Geography Project on climate change and the Copenhagen Conference

HOMEWORK

Students receive regular homework that is appropriate for their age and ability. Feedback on homework often forms the basis of lesson starters and students are encouraged to peer- and self-mark their homework returns. A lot of our homework tasks revolve around the research of important topics such as climate change, endangered species, rainforest depletion and up to date items of geographical interest in the news and media.

Homework often takes the form of competitions, with cash and other prizes available. In year seven is the geography story-writing competition, in year eight the volcano model and news film competition and in year nine the competition to design and make a youth magazine on exploitation in the global fashion industry.

WEB LINKS:

www.google.com (for general research)
www.wikipedia.com (for cautious general research)
www.youtube.com (for latest news clips and other media items)
www.nationalgeographic.com (general purpose geography website)
www.mapzone.ordnancesurvey.co.uk (for map skills, ordnance survey etc)
www.georesources.co.uk (wide variety of British sources)
www.kidsgeo.com (for interactive geography games)