Iceland - made by volcanoes...

Iceland has been made by volcanoes. 

It developed along the point where a 'hot spot' or mantle plume coincided with a plate boundary.

Successive eruptions have laid layers of lava as flood basalts, spiked through with small effusive moments and the occasional larger eruption: Katla, Hekla, Laki etc.

Image: Natthagi Lavas - some people walking on lava just a few years old.

Do the benefits of this activity outweigh the potential risks and problems?

I asked my students to consider this question.

Do the Benefits of Volcanic Activity in Iceland outweigh the benefits? by Alan Parkinson

Will Fry on The Fens

Will Fry's Changing Places Substack had a recent post on The Fens: the location for King's Ely. It explored the way that places are represented in order to justify colonising or changing them.

e.g.

William Camden’s Britannia (the Lonely Planet guide of its day), written in 1586, depicted the Fen-dwellers as “a kind of people according to the nature of the place where they dwell: rude, uncivil and envious to all others”. This is an early example of the idea that the nature and character of a place can shape the people in it.

It refers to James Boyce's excellent book 'Imperial Mud' which looks at the landscape of the Fens.

Happy New Year

And we're back in the room for 2023 with more tales from our classrooms in Ely.

Octagon lit up for King's Ely campaign.

A story from last week, when we launched our energy saving campaign in school.

Ely Cathedral’s Octagon Tower is illuminated red this evening (November 14th) to acknowledge the fact that King’s Ely has launched a campaign to reflect the climate emergency. 


Our ‘See Red for Crisis at Christmas’ mission aims to persuade every single student and staff member across our 75-acre campus to be more aware about the energy they are using, and potentially wasting, and the impact that this is having on the environment.


King’s Ely already has environmental impact and climate change high on its agenda, but this campaign aims to inspire lasting change amongst our school community and beyond.


We want an immediate response - lights being turned off in classrooms, day houses, boarding houses, offices and communal areas when they do not need to be on, as well as radiators and electronic devices.


King’s Ely is promising to make a significant donation to the homelessness charity, Crisis, and its ‘Crisis at Christmas’ appeal (www.crisis.org.uk) if a positive change is brought about! 

Eastenders Credit sequence

We sent off our postcards to COP27 as part of Oxfam GB's Climate Justice campaign.

More on this in a separate post.

I was alerted to the fact that the end credits of Eastenders on Wednesday this week were subtly (ish) changed to act as a trailer for Frozen Planet II.

You can see the video of the credits here.

The new end credits saw London’s East End transformed to show the river Thames bursting its banks with parts of the capital under water in a hypothetical scenario of what London could look like in the future.

It then zoomed out to capture a satellite image of the Arctic and point to the last episode of Sir David Attenborough’s series, underlining the message that the challenge of melting ice in this frozen region could one day affect us all close to home.

Year #10

It seems like no time at all, but I'm about to start the 10th year at King's and therefore the 10th year of this blog.

Thanks to all those who have followed and reading it.

PTI Education Residential

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of heading for Downing College, University of Cambridge for this year's Prince's Teaching Institute Enrichment Residential to present a session.

I had been asked to speak to a group of geographers about fieldwork and my Presidential theme of the Everyday. I drew in my colleague and mentor Claire Kyndt to join me as we had been asked to lead a fieldwork session and I knew that she had plenty of experience, and was also feeding in the work she presented at the GA Conference on the work of the Dear Data project.

Here's the presentation we were used.

We were fortunate that we had a free Mela event setting up on Parker's Piece for the weekend, which added additional interest to the space, as well as options for food purchases.

Some pictures of the event, many taken from the Ferris wheel that was set up on Parker's Piece for the summer

Happy to answer any questions regarding the suggestions here. Delegates had access to a wide range of materials.

Claire and I had some very positive feedback about our contribution to the weekend.

National Fieldwork Week - Epipolar

Out with groups last week for National Fieldwork Week.

We were looking at old photos of the city of Ely and how the same locations have changed.

The students were interested to see the changes that had occurred since the images were taken (and in some cases, very little change). I sourced the images from the Epipolar website where there are pairs of images which you can swipe between to see the change.

They have also shared images for other local locations.

A video created for the site can be viewed below:

Whole school photo

Can you spot yourself?

Whole School Photograph 2022 from King's Ely on Vimeo.

Job vacancy in King's Ely Senior

Within King's we have a pre-school, Junior and Senior School as well as an International School.

We currently have an exciting vacancy in the Senior part of the school which means you get a chance to work with me at my school. 

The job is shown below, and the link to the vacancy page is here.

If you are interested, feel free to get in touch with any queries.

Geography Maternity cover available from January 2022

A chance to support my department in 2022 covering for a colleague.

Working in the Senior School with KS3, GCSE and A level teaching.

Happy to answer questions... 

Eight years done

It's hard for me to believe, but I finished my 8th year at King's Ely on Friday. I also said bye to a colleague who had been at the school for 33 years, and done 99 terms at the school.

I joined the school as a part time teacher to support the work of colleagues who had been changing and updating the curriculum and the department, and I'm grateful to Claire Kyndt for the original invitation to work at the school, having been inspired by our work with Mission:Explore and other projects.

After colleagues moved on, I stepped up to be full time, and also continue to lead the department at KS3 and also KS2. I've taught GCSE and A level as well, but now focus on the lower school.

We ended the year with a reduced version of our usual Prizegiving service and event. We had Luke Jerram's GAIA looking down on us from the nave...

Happy holidays, and I'll be back blogging our work in September.

A chance to come and work with us

Following the interviews for the Senior school Head of Geography post at the school where I work before Easter, we now have an opening for a Teacher of Geography at King's Ely.

Come and take a look at the information. 

A virtual tour of the school can be accessed here.

Closing date for applications is the 20th of April.

Come and work with me

The Head of Geography role at King's Ely school is currently available for applications. It's an opportunity to work with me and lead the department in the Senior school (I mostly teach in the Junior part of the school) and take us forward, building on the excellent work of my colleague who is leaving for an exciting new opportunity.

Happy to answer any questions about the job or school. The deadline is next week so there's not too much time to act.

Details about the school and the role are here on the school's website.

Look forward to seeing some of you on interview day perhaps. The video on the main school website gives a nice idea of the school.


Image: Alan Parkinson, shared under CC license - The Old Palace

Heading back to school...

Just a taster of what we've been missing since March...

A Day in the Life of a King's Ely Student from King's Ely on Vimeo.

Job vacancy - come and work with us

Occasionally, a job appears in the school where I work, and in the department where I work...
There's one free again at the moment.
We are after someone to work in the Senior school in particular, who is a strong 'A' level practitioner, through GCSE and down to KS3 in the Junior School potentially. There will also be some wider contribution to the school community too of course - sport perhaps, or some other skill you have.

Full details are on the school website.

You have until the 3rd of March to apply, and interviews are held on the 10th of March.
Good luck!

Doodle

Thanks to Dan at Doodle for our new poster... one of a series he is doing as a little sub-project.

Wow what a response! I've put together a little booking page : ) Chose a date, write down (or email) your idea and receive a free a2 poster! Grab a design slot here! https://t.co/UcqApY6VWR

— doodle dan (@doodle_ed) August 19, 2019

Looking forward to the final A2 poster

Five minutes with our new colleague from September

60 000 views

Although dwarfed by the 5 million+ visits I've had to the LivingGeography blog, it's still nice to know that people are interested in what happens in my classroom too.

If you want to visit my specialist GCSE teaching blog visit here as well. It covers my teaching of the OCR B Geography specification.

Come and work with me...

The Head of Geography role at King's Ely school is currently available for applications. It's an opportunity to work with me and lead the department in the Senior school (I mostly teach in the Junior part of the school)

Happy to answer any questions about the job.
Details about the school and the role are here on the school's website.