New blog for OCR 'B' Geography - useful for Year 10s

A new blog written by Mr. Parkinson, to support Year 10s (and 11s at revision time) with GCSE studies.
As you will know, Mr. Parkinson wrote sections of the 2 OCR books for the 9-1 OCR specs, and is going to be teaching Year 10 group OCR 'B' GCSE Geography.

The blog will share the resources that are used to teach OCR Geography from September.

Ducks and gyres

Just came into my social media feeds... A simple video to go along with our lesson on plastic ducks as part of our Ocean plastics unit as part of the Geography of our Stuff...

Name this place

2 merits for King's students who recognise this geologically important location...

Mr. Everest on the tellybox...

In case you missed it, here's Mr. Everest talking about the school's use of coding, along with some students giving their thoughts...

Meaningful Maps - more research involvement for King's Ely

After the publication of the paper on VR in Education that I blogged about recently, there's a further project that we're involved with. In the last few weeks, students from several year groups have been involved with the Meaningful Maps project by drawing a map of a place that is important to them. These have been completed by some of my colleagues at Kings Ely Junior, and also King's Ely Acremont (thanks to Sarah Stevens for a big pile of maps)

The project is being organised by Stephen Scoffham, Peter Vujakovic and Paula Owens.
The website is now up and running, and it will develop as more maps come in during the pilot phase of the project which we are involved with.

School's out for summer

Thanks for reading the blog during the last academic year. 
We'll be back after the summer for the fifth (!) year of sharing what we do at King's Ely Geography...
We have some new curriculum modules to teach, and some old favourites will return refreshed.

Have a great summer whatever you're up to...

The Women's Euro-Arabian North Pole Expedition 2018

Mr. Parkinson has been asked to help create the education resources for this expedition which will take place in 2018. It is led by Felicity Aston, who also led the Pole of Cold expedition that I wrote the (award winning) resources for, and was also described in Felicity's book 'Chasing Winter' (which is excellent by the way)
Here's a trailer video for the expedition.

_Exposure from Felicity Aston on Vimeo.

The website is here.
Keep an eye out for all the news on the expedition and the resources later this year. 
We shall be involving King's Ely students in this writing project.

There are also some amazing and alarming pictures of the great Arctic melt by Diane Tuft in this Guardian article.

Head of Geography vacancy - a great opportunity for someone

A vacancy has arisen, with a wonderful opportunity to be appointed as Head of Department at King's Ely.
Mr. Parkinson, who writes this blog, leads on Junior School geography matters, but this role is as the overall Head of Department for the school, with a teaching load in the Senior part of the school.

You can read all about the school and the role on the school website, along with a job description and person specification. Deadline for applications is at the end of July.

This would be a fascinating role for someone who would like to work in one of the oldest schools in the world, in an excellent environment. The Fens are a beautiful landscape to live and work in, and there is the school's association with Ely Cathedral. Academic standards are very high, and there are plenty of opportunities to immerse oneself into the life of the school, which is a vibrant and active community. Plus you get to work with wonderful creative colleagues, and teach some interesting and contemporary geography.

The job is available from January 2018.

Update: Deadline has passed....

The Future of Cities

Worth a watch... This will be useful for those exploring urban futures... and smart cities...
We've mentioned Songdo before, when exploring how cities develop and can be developed from scratch in a short space of time...

Open Morning

Thanks to all those who popped by N2 to have a chat during the Summer Celebration...

Around the World in 80 Days

A few days ago, Mark Beaumont visited the Reform Club. He was paying homage to Phileas Fogg: the hero of Jules Verne's 'Around the World in 80 Days'.
The reason was that after his earlier record breaking circumnavigation by bike, Mark headed off earlier today on an attempt to go around the world in 80 days.

I will be introducing the journey to students tomorrow, so that they can hopefully follow the journey over the summer, and there will be some rewards for those who show some evidence of this on their return in September, by which time Mark will hopefully be well on his way... what an epic journey and physical and mental effort lies ahead of him...

To follow the journey, see Mark Beaumont on Facebook, or follow @MrMarkBeaumont on Twitter.

The main website for the journey is at Artemis World Cycle.
Here's the route:

Images: Copyright Mark Beaumont on Facebook/Twitter / The Guardian

For teachers wanting to introduce students to the journey, Mark has teamed up with Twinkl Resources, who have created a series of resources. These are a mixture of FREE and subscriber only, and are attractively presented and linked to some useful curriculum areas.

Mark is raising money for Orkid Studio.


Orkidstudio works to benefit communities through innovative architecture, construction and social enterprise.

We believe that creativity has the power to inspire and instil pride within people regardless of race, nationality or circumstance and we use architecture, design and enterprise as tools for relieving poverty and transforming lives.

Our build projects focus on the process of design and construction rather than just the final product. We believe this process is a powerful tool for affecting social change and empowering people through the sharing of skills and knowledge on site.

With a strong belief in the power of enterprise to affect social change, we work on projects and with partners that support and drive the local economy. We engage local resources and women in construction to create high quality built spaces that promote health, education and equality.
Mark's hoping to raise £10 for every mile that he cycles.