More barriers going up...

A very useful map from the Economist showing some of the current boundaries that have been put up between different parts of the world. Click a country to see where the border lies, and the reasons for its creation.

Thanks to Miss Kyndt for the tipoff for this.
Make sure you follow the @KingsElyGeog twitter feed for more like that...

Migration images

I'm grateful to Duncan Hawley for sending through these images that he took a couple of weeks ago in Budapest. I was due to be present at the same conference, but ended up in Bruges instead. The pictures were taken at the main railway station.

Year 9, 10, 11, and 12 geographers in particular should be able to discuss the circumstances which have led to these scenes.

Images: copyright Duncan Hawley

A Sky News film to watch

600 up...

This blog is now 600 posts old... it's already developing nicely to support students at King's and elsewhere.
Use the search function top left to find posts on specific topics.

Who owns Cambridgeshire?

This Private Eye map shows the land in the UK that is registered as being owned overseas.

Some parts of Ely are registered overseas, including areas close to the school itself. How much of London is actually 'owned' by overseas companies or individuals?

Urban patterns

Year 10 are underway with Population students, and we used Ben Hennig's rather splendid images and mapping (and also with Year 12)
Here's a map from the Independent's i newspaper, which is a great website and Twitter feed to follow for all King's Geographers.

It shows the country where the largest city houses the most people within the population of that country. So Singapore, for example is 100% urbanised and holds 100% of the people of Singapore.

Year 9 conflict homework for the first week

Year 9

Contemporary Conflicts

We discussed conflicts, and produced a conflict continuum. We also identified a possible definition of conflict.

Conflict

"a state of disagreement caused by the perceived or actual opposition of needs, values and interests between people. Geographically, it is often about opposing views about the ways in which a resource may be developed or used. The result is negative tension between the parties involved. A conflict can result in disagreement, harsh words, armed conflict or even war".

Identify a picture which shows some sort of 'conflict', based on one of the scales we looked at in the lesson.

1. Why did you choose the image.
2. What conflict is it connected with, & on what scale is this happening?
3. Identify 5 questions that it poses that you want answers to

The picture of Aylan Kurdi was used to show the power of an image...

GI Learner project - startup...

For the next 3 years, King's Ely Geographers are going to be involved in a project with a number of EU partners (schools, universities and other partners) called GI-LEARNER. I am co-ordinating the involvement of the school.

I've mentioned the project previously, but am currently in Bruges for the start-up meeting, where we have been discussing the practicalities of setting up the various events, activities, research and resource creation that is going to occupy us for the next few years, along with around 100 students of ages from 7-13.

I shall be recruiting 12 King's Ely students from Year 7, and 12 from Year 10 - get in touch if you would like to be involved in the potential of working with schools in a number of locations, and sharing our work in Madrid in 3 years time.

Partner representatives exploring Bruges

The partners involved are:

Four schools

Sint-Lodewijkscollege, Bruges, Belgium 

King’s Ely, Cambridgeshire

Bundesoberstufenrealgymnasium Salzburg, Nonntal, Austria 

Liceul Teoretic "Dimitrie Cantemir" Iasi, Romania

Two universities

Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain 

Universiteit Gent, Gent, Belgium

European Association of Geographers  (EuroGeo)

You can follow our Twitter feed here: @GILearner where we will be sharing more information on our project and how it develops.

Watch out for the #gilearner hashtag too.

The school is also involved in the MOOS project, and the attractive website for this project is here.

Extreme sports

Source: Best Health Degrees Helpful for Year 9 exploring the notion of risk...

'A' level results

Congratulations to all King's Ely students who picked up their 'A' level results yesterday.

Fingers crossed for next week and the GCSE results.

UPDATE: Congratulations on the GCSE results too

Exam results

Best wishes to those receiving their exam results tomorrow, and next Thursday, and to those who may already have received iGCSE results too.

Food Waste

Food waste has been a major issue that we have studied in Year 7.
The Guardian has had a series of articles this week on the issue, with the shocking conclusion that if we cut food waste, we could deal with problems of food shortages.

For every 2 tonnes of food and drink consumed in the home, another tonne is going to waste at some point in the chain

David Moon, head of ​food ​​sustainability at W​rap UK

There are the 3 useful recent Guardian articles to go along with this issue here, here and here.

More to come on this in the new school year.

Yorkshire - an adventurous landscape ?

When the Tour de France came to Yorkshire from Welcome to Yorkshire on Vimeo.

ONS Life Expectancy calculator

End of Year

A week in to the summer, and time to pause for a moment and reflect on my 2nd year back teaching after my break...
It was a bit of a headlong year, with plenty of successes, and more learning from me as I got used to the rhythm of the year, and squeezed in visits to many places and wrote many tens of thousands of words too...
Next year promises to be even more exciting, and action packed, and I'll blog about that nearer the end of summer...

Here's an image I took in the Cathedral at the end of the service to mark the end of year.

I'll be back in 6 weeks or so, to start the third year of this blog, but for now, have a great summer!
Thanks to all those who have visited and read... 

An award for King's Ely

From the Principal's end of year letter....

We heard that we had been nominated for an award from Education Business Awards, an organisation in its tenth year of providing recognition for successful investment in education across all sectors of Primary and Secondary education nationally.

We don’t know who nominated us, but we are very grateful to whoever it was because, at the award ceremony in London today, we won the ICT Facility Award for the ‘educational establishment in the UK that has made outstanding progress in the provision of a first class environment for the teaching of ICT and related subjects’.
The entry in the programme read:

King’s Ely is quickly gaining a reputation as a trailblazer when it comes to the use of ICT. Despite its mediaeval buildings, the school is making advancements in ICT provision including four computer rooms, Bring-Your-Own-Device initiatives and taking part in a Europe-wide Erasmus project to build digital resources.