Kings Grove Geog Blog

Fairtrade

2009-02-05T07:18:00.002Z

We are reluctant to have just become a fair trade school and are very happy with the achievement!!

GCSE Geography Classes

2008-09-16T16:55:00.002+01:00

Year 10 geography classes have started doing their GCSES at the moment they are lookin at weathering on rocks. Recently they have made a powerpoint presentation on mudslides.

Hopefully we will put some examples on soon!

Jack Hazeldine joins blogging team!

2008-09-16T15:49:00.003+01:00

Jack in Year 10 has agreed to get involved in writing this blog. He will become key to the future success of this site as he chose geography as one of his GCSE options.

Welcome to the very small journalist team, Jack.

Year 8 start by the sea!

2008-09-16T15:39:00.002+01:00

Our year 8's have started the new national curriculum as guinea pigs! This is due to King's Grove starting year 8 one year earlier than required by the government. We are currently working on Coasts, looking at erosion and deposition.

Year 7 start with a test!

2008-09-16T15:36:00.002+01:00

As part of the new national curriculum for year 7, we have started with baseline tests. These are designed in geography to see what the youngsters already know from their primary school days. The results are not all in for part 1 of the test but the highest scores will be posted on here within a week or two. Watch this space!

Welcome to the new academic year

2008-09-10T22:22:00.003+01:00

Welcome back to the geog blog for King's Grove School.

We are going to update this site each week with information on the new Key Stage 3 curriculum and developments within the GCSE geography course.

Watch this space!

Mr B

Japan Day images slide show

2007-07-16T21:38:00.000+01:00

Foden and Sharpes shine

2007-07-16T21:33:00.001+01:00

Laura Foden and Aaron Sharpes produced the best drafts for the introduction and methods after last Friday's deadline. All work handed in has been roughly marked and is now ready for you all to collect and head off for a summer of data presentation and analysis.

Enjoy the holidays but try and do an hour a day, you really will bew amazed at what you can achieve if you have the right approach to work.

What a day!

2007-07-15T20:35:00.000+01:00

Japan Day activites on Friday the 13th July went down well with Year 9s.

Tom Pennell even begged for green tea at the end of the day. One word Tom - Tesco!

Massive thanks to all the staff involved in preparing the hall, working with the children on the day, and coping with my high stress levels. think it all went ok.

Add a comment if you want to say something about it.

Year 10 Coursework - Introduction transect

2007-07-06T07:55:00.000+01:00

Year 10s will all need to put at least one transect into their intros - I have given you all a copy of the base map for the West Street location (B) - inner city area. It is entirely up to each of you if you decide to do more of these for the other locations. You certainly will get more marks if they are done well, perhaps with the zones from burgess/hoyt coloured in.

You could do a transect like this too!

Make sure you annotate (label) every picture and diagram properly. The coursework section of this blog will help - there is a link to another blog to show you how to do this properly.

Tribe!

2007-07-05T23:28:00.000+01:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tribe/

BBC Two on demand on NTL are showing all Tribe episodes from the fantastic series about adventurer Bruce Parry living with the world's remotest tribes. Watch it if you can for real life geography in action.

Year 7 Volcano model making

2007-07-05T23:06:00.000+01:00

Homework - to be handed in first lesson in September.

To build a model of a famous volcano using paper mache or other materials like plaster of Paris.

My Year 7 groups have already found a suitable picture of a famous volcano - a number of students have chosen Etna, St Helens and Fuji, which is great.

I would like to see the volcanoes in September, painted and small enough to bring into school. If you can't bring it into school then a digital picture of your model would be good.

Get modelling!

China's one child policy

2007-07-05T22:58:00.000+01:00

As part of Year 9's work on the topic 'comparing countries', we were discussing China's one child policy to control the population growth. Some interesting views on this subject, especially from 9-6 today. Give me your thoughts on this matter folks!

Should China be forcing parents to control births in the busy urban/city areas?

What would you think if Gordon Brown decided to introduce a similar policy?

Simply add a comment to this diary entry to express your views.

9 days and counting......

2007-07-02T21:44:00.001+01:00

GCSE coursework deadline approaching - year 10s are busy tying up their introduction and methodology. Great to see Jessica, Amy C and Lorna appearing after school to get some extra work done. Lorna worked on the burgess model and developing this for Crewe. Keep this up girls.

Here's a good link to internet geography for urban land use models -
http://www.geography.learnontheinternet.co.uk/topics/landusemodels.html

Here is another useful one - www.answers.com/topic/concentric-ring-model

Cloud Appreciation Society

2007-06-30T22:38:00.000+01:00

You can join this strange but geographically interesting society for £3.00 by clicking on the link to the right. You get a badge and certificate. They have a gallery of cloud pictures taken by members and I was wondering if this could work in Kings Grove......

How about the Kings Grove Cloud Club? or Kings Grove Cloud Appreciation Society, or the Cheshire Cloud Appreciation?

When was the last time you appreciated a simple cloud for its beauty or form? Wondering if we could all get snapping on our digital cameras and I could display these images on this blog?

Your thoughts please.... was then thinking of membership, t-shirts, pens etc - My head is in the clouds etc.

Clouds

2007-06-30T22:09:00.000+01:00

Travelling along the Shavington bypass on Friday evening (8pm) and saw some lovely cloud formations, we just had to take a few images.

Got me thinking....... watch this space, I have a crazy idea taken from those strange folk across the Atlantic.

Sinclair & Gorringe rock!

2007-06-27T22:22:00.000+01:00

Get a Voki now!

Japan Day and the British Army groupings

2007-06-27T22:04:00.001+01:00

Get a Voki now!

Japan Day workshops!

2007-06-26T17:05:00.000+01:00

Japan Day is now nearly upon us. We have had loads of support from students and staff and I can now confirm the activities taking part and teachers involved.

There will be a carousel in the Hall of stalls/workshops:

Kanji writing - Mr Benbow
Origami - Mrs Ward
Geisha dress - Miss Baines & Miss Hughes
Japanese armour - Mr Colbert
Art of Fujisan - Mrs Johnson-Abberley
Geography of Japan - Mr Moss/Mr Fox
Haiku Poetry - Miss O'Sullivan

There will also be an hour of self defence by the martial arts team.
Students will rotate between Japan Day and team building with the British Army led by Mrs Pennington.

Coursework Voki

2007-06-26T00:15:00.001+01:00

Get a Voki now!

Animated Benbow!

2007-06-25T22:21:00.000+01:00

Get a Voki now!

Double lesson for Year 10 - 26th June

2007-06-25T22:00:00.001+01:00

During this double I will endeavour to see every student for a 5 minute 'interview' about their progress in the coursework write up. I will go through alphabetically and hope to see plans/progression through the introduction/methods of collecting data from last Friday's trip.

Thursday's session is still on after school - 3:20 - 4:00pm - coursework clinic I think I will call it!

Interesting art work by local primary children!

Mr Clarkson takes blogging lesson!

2007-06-25T15:26:00.000+01:00

Mr Clarkson joins the ranks of the world wide blog society! He is now a dirty great blogger. Hoping to see Mr C's history blog in the new academic year.

Competition idea - your thoughts please

2007-06-24T20:58:00.000+01:00

Was thinking of running a competition in school for students/parents to take a holiday picture that includes aspects of geography. Was going to theme this 'holidays' as it could also mean just a vacation from the school, maybe even just the summer in Crewe.

Would like to run this just over the summer and need to think of a decent first prize that will motivate the troops to take part. Could the GCSE geog group run this? Closing date Friday 14th September?

Email or printed photos with name on back of photographic paper. Might even do a slide show on this blog of some of the digital images that are emailed to me.

GCSE Geography next year

2007-06-24T20:41:00.000+01:00

The year 9s have decided on their options and I can tell you all that there will be one band of merry men and young ladies taking the subject in Year 10 this September. At present there are 29 taking geography, up by 15 from last year, which is great news.

If you are one of the 29 and would like to talk about the course come and find me in July and I can take you through the topics.

Glastonbury 2007

2007-06-24T20:33:00.000+01:00

Watched the late night musical mud fest last night and I think Editors have now become my favourite band around at the moment. They were amazing with their anthem 'Munich' and their new stuff is ace!

Check their site out at http://www.editorsofficial.com/

New slide show

2007-06-24T02:18:00.000+01:00

Brazil Day

2007-06-24T01:49:00.000+01:00

Brazil Day 20th March 2007 was once again a success with Mark Titterton from Wildlife on Wheels entertaining the whole of Year 8 in the drama room with his collection of rainforest creatures from the Amazon.

Mark showed the children this year - cane toad, millipede, boa constrictor and a bird eating spider.

We are hoping after a second successful visit, Mark will become an annual fixture in our school calendar.

Deadline for GCSE Geography coursework

2007-06-23T23:05:00.000+01:00

Deadline for drafts (typed up) of Introduction and Methodology is Friday the 13th July (giving you all three weeks).

I reckon if you can all do one hour of typing a night the coursework will be completed on time and to a decent standard. Remember to follow the guidelines Geographical Information to help you all the way through the write up.

Other section deadlines: (For your day books and walls at home!)

Results (graphs & tables of raw data typed) + Analysis of results - Friday 14th September
Conclusions - Friday 5th October
Limitations + Appendices - Friday 19th October

This means that we need to be all finished by October half term holidays. That's all folks!

Panoramic Earth

2007-06-23T22:59:00.000+01:00

Thanks to GeoBlogs and his blog - http://geographyjazz.blogspot.com/ for this information.

Looks like a really good website for images from all over the world.

Image above is of the Charles Bridge in Prague.

Year 7 volcano model making

2007-06-23T22:47:00.000+01:00

Fuji and tea fields in foreground.

Year 7 project

Currently we are working on model making in Year 7. Homework task: To find an image of a famous volcano to use as a basis for building a volcano model. These will not explode, merely a representation on the real life version of their chosen mountain. Favourites at present are Etna, Vesuvius and Mt St. Helens. Will be posting the winning effort in July.

Japan Day approaches

2007-06-23T22:26:00.000+01:00

On the 13th July the Year 9 students will experience Japan Day.

We have loads of stuff for them that day including:

Origami, Kanji writing, Haiku Poetry, Geisha dressing up and make up, martial arts displays and self defence classes, the art of Mount Fuji, plus a geography of Japan table.

The Year 9s will also have team building with the British Army on the same day. Would be interested in reading anyone's thoughts on all of this on this blog.

We have also managed to get a small educational grant (£££) to run this day, which is brilliant news. Big thank you to Heidi Potter and her team for this. http://www.japan21.org.uk/

Flickr test

2007-06-23T22:13:00.000+01:00

Not sure if this will work, but here goes..... Ricacre pics in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/9232888@N07/show/

Just found these

2007-06-23T21:48:00.000+01:00

Where I live in Ellesmere Port.

This image is taken in the middle of December 2005 in Rivacre Country Park, which (this sounds like I am a right snob!) is at the bottom of our cul-de-sac, next to the golf course!

Just thought it was a mint picture. I have lots more of these on my PC at home, just wondering how to share them on here.

Check out your own Carbon footprint

2007-06-23T21:11:00.000+01:00

The government have launched a new website to calculate your own CO2 pollution!
It is designed to help each of us make simple changes to tackle climate change. As geographers I recommend you all do this.

h ttp://actonco2.dire ct.gov.uk /index.html

Voki - try this!

2007-06-23T20:51:00.000+01:00

Going to try and use Voki to do some teaching as soon as I can get hold of a PC microphone.

In the meantime children, why don't you try and create your own Voki!? Looks amusing.

See the link to the right of the screen.

http://www.voki.com

Mr B

Precipitation!

2007-06-23T20:28:00.000+01:00

A rainy day in Crewe for the Year 10 geographers on Friday 22nd June 2007.

A superb day though as they understood urban geography by asking old ladies questions on the environment locally.

Bring on the Burgess and Hoyt models!

Now for the coursework write up. Make sure you all get drafts into me by the 10th September. I will publish deadlines for each section on this blog by Monday/Tuesday

The images will be available on the shared S: drive for you to use by annotating them, then placing them into your courswork. Ask me how to annotate these properly or check out www.flickr.com/photos/9062648@N08/558012284/ for Mr Cowan's super little demo! Thank you sir.

Welcome!

2007-06-23T20:24:00.000+01:00

Well well well!

Mr Benbow finally embraces technology. If you have found us then I am obviously very pleased. Now, what is this going to be used for?

A number of things really......

A place where students can hopefully visit regularly.
Somewhere I can rant and rave about all things geographical.
A site for my Year 10's to be challenged further.
Help with homework, projects, coursework and GCSE revision.

This may take me a while but for now I will try to post on a weekly basis and see how it goes.

Mr B