GCSE field trip to Norfolk, April 2nd - 4th 2014

Year 10 students should have received a letter about the GCSE fieldtrip to the north Norfolk coast in April 2014. Although some way off, it is essential that reply slips and monies are collected quickly. There is a deadline for deposits (£40) by the 18th October 2013. It would be much appreciated if parents could ensure this money is sent into school by this date. The entire cost of the trip is £140. You may, of course, pay the entire amount in one go if you wish. You may pay in cash, cheque or use the on-line school ParentPay system. Should you require financial assistance, I would urge you to get in touch ASAP.

We have travelled to the Kingswood centre in Overstrand for many years. It is a great place to study coastal environments. The fieldtrip is essential for students as they will use the information collected to write a piece of controlled assessment about how this stretch of coastline is distinctive. As a result of recent changes to the GCSE course, the controlled assessment is now worth 25% of the final grade.  

You can find out more information about the centre by clicking here

ATTENTION YEAR 11 - important information

You don't have much time before the final exam (Weds 12th June 2013). This exam is worth 50% of your final grade and it is really important that you revise properly for it. You must remember that only 3 out of the 4 topics you have studied will be tested in this exam. In January you sat the SDME exam on the Population & Settlement theme and this will NOT be tested in the final exam - you will only face questions on the following units:
ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
RIVERS & COASTS
NATURAL HAZARDS

So, you must revise these topics and the case studies that go with them carefully. This blog has lots of useful revision tips and links (search for them). The Geography dept page on the school VLE aslo has lots of really useful materials on it.
This website, designed by a teacher in another school,  is also an excellent source for revision and you really should visit it

Follow these links to be taken to pages of case studies produced by a Geography teacher called Richard Briggs. They are not the same case studies that you would have studied in your lessons but are good if you have misplaced case study sheets or just some some additional information to revise from.
Rivers and Coasts
Natural Hazards
Economic Development

For those of you who are re-sitting the SDME exam, you should be aware that this time the exam will be on Natural Hazards. The pre-release booklet is available here. Make sure you download a copy and go through it.

FIELDTRIPS - Norfolk (GCSE) and Cornwall (AS Level)

AS trip to Cornwall, Constantine Bay

A quick reminder for all Year 10 and Year 12 students and parents - reply slips, payments and medical forms need to be returned need to be returned as soon as possible for these trips.

The final payment for the GCSE trip is 7th December 2012, though earlier payment would be appreciated.
The A-level trip has a deadline of 30th November 2012 for the initial payment.


If you have misplaced your medical form then you can download one by following this link

Year 10 students measuring beach profiles in Norfolk

Both of these trips are essential parts of the course.The data collected on the GCSE trip to Norfolk will be used to write a controlled assessment that is now worth 25% of the final GCSE grade (changes made to the syllabus this year). The information gathered and the experience of different fieldwork techniques for the A-level trip will be helpful when students sit their Unit 2 exam in the summer.

Of course, an additional benefit for both trips is the idea of developing independence and the ability to mix and work with others. Building team skills and confidence is an important part of the fieldtrip experience, as well as learning about Geography.

Ageing population in China

China has experienced rapid economic growth over the past decade or so, but this is jeopardised by an ageing population. This link will take you to a short BBC video report about what is happening in China and the problems they could experience. In 20 years the number of Chinese aged 60+ will double, meaning there will be more retired people in China than the entire population of Western Europe.

What can be done about ageing population? Are there any solutions? Is an ageing population entirely negative, or can we find positives? Where else in the world do we see an ageing of the population and why is this happening?

Click here to read an in depth BBC report on China's ageing population from Sept 20th 2012.
More details on China's ageing population
The economic time bomb - China growing old before it can grow rich? May 2012

Revision Guides for Year 11

The department has ordered revision guides for GCSE students which should be in school soon. Your teacher should issue you with a letter which explains that each guide costs £4. You should show this letter to parents and return the reply slip, along with the money, to school as soon as possible (either to your Geography teacher or Mr Bains).

The revision guides are published by CGP. They are tailored to our syllabus (OCR B) and are good value (the retail price is higher than £4). This blog does have useful links for revision that can also be used. You should make sure that your exercise books from Year 10 are kept safely somewhere as you will obviously revise from them. You should also ensure that your case study folder is kept up to date and your work is printed off the computers.

GCSE Geography to change

The GCSE Geography course will change from what has been advertised for the current Year 9 who opted to study it.

Main changes are:
1. There is now only one piece of controlled assessment which has a word count limit of 2000 words. You will have between 16-18 hours to get this work completed and it will be worth 25% of you final grade. This work is based on a fieldtrip.

2. There will be no pre release booklet for the decision making exam.

June GCSE SDME exam (re-take)

The date of the exam is Thursday 14th June (am)
The exam has this title: The old age saga - why does an older population pose challenges for us all?

There is pre-release booklet that you will be issued with and some practice questions and resources. Your job will be to work through this material, revise about ageing populations and make sure that you are happy with the different challenges ageing population presents and how it can be managed.

You should speak to your teacher if you are not provided with these materials asap.

SDME exam: 60min podcast for students

As the Year 11s prepare for the SDME exam on the 24th Jan, some of you may find it useful to listen to this podcast, where Mark Howell, a teacher from a school in Northamptonshire, goes through the pre-release booklet and explains sources and gives advice on how to answer questions. Because it's a podcast, you can download it and listen to it whenever you get a spare moment, in small chunks. Click on the title and you'll be taken to the podcast on iTunes. If you do decide to listen to it or download it, leave a comment for the producer, maybe thanking him for the effort!

Pakistan Floods

At least 369 people have died and 700,000 are living in refugee camps because of flooding in southern Pakistan, the country's national disaster authority said Thursday.

The flooding in Sindh province has destroyed 1.5 million homes in 41,000 villages, the government said. About 8.2 million people have been affected. Along with the deaths, more than 740 people have been injured.

About 67 percent of food stocks have been destroyed and nearly 37 percent of the livestock has been lost "or sold to avoid loss," Elisabeth Byrs, spokeswoman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said earlier this week.
"At least 5 million surviving animals are at risk, lacking feed and shelter and facing increased exposure to debilitating diseases and worm infestations," Byrs said.
The United Nations' World Food Programme has been distributing food to thousands of people.
More than 6,000 schools have been damaged by the floods and 1,363 education facilities are currently being used as relief distribution sites in Sindh, officials said.


Click on the title to be taken to more details and some video footage from the Telegraph.
Click on the photo to be be taken to more images of the flood.

If you're stuck and not sure how to revise.....

....try some of these ideas:

Flashcards: On small cards, summarise a case study into one (or both) sides of the cards and refer to it regularly. Make sure that you include key facts and number as you condense the case study to fit the card.

Colour coding: colour code large pieces of text into sections. For example, it could be the social, economic and environmental impacts of the Cardiff Bay redevelopment

Memory tests: You could look at an important diagram (erg the cross section of a meander) for 20 seconds, then cover it over and draw what you remember. Then give yourself another 20 seconds to see what you missed and add it in. Eventually, you will be able to draw the sketch without looking at a copy.

Key words test: You could ask someone to read out 10 definitions and you have to say what the key word is. Then you could try it the other way around which is harder with someone giving you a key word to define.

Spider diagrams (mind maps): Write a key theme in the centre of an A3 piece of paper. Write the sub-themes around it with important ideas and case studies to back them up. Stick your finished spider diagram somewhere visible where you will be able to refer to it often (e.g. fridge door, bedroom wall).

Practice exam questions: Look at the examples of past case study questions. Practice writing responses to these questions using the flashcards or colour coded case studies you have created. There are some past papers and mark schemes under the Year 11 panel on the left hand side of the blog.

Summarising: Condense a section of text into a set number of bullet points.

Reading aloud: Read a case study summary aloud, then try to say aloud all the facts and figures you remember without the summary. You could also read your keyword lists aloud.

Repeated writing: Copy out pieces of information more than one time (five times would be appropriate). The repetition will help you to fix the facts in your memory, which is obviously important with case studies.

Look at the STUDY SKILLS section on the left hand side panel for more ideas and search for "mind maps" to see some examples.

GCSE students

Year 10 - information about May's controlled assessment can be found now on the left hand panel. Please take a look at it.

Year 11 - Two items have been added for your revision. One is a powerpoint, produced by the exam board which is well worth a look. The other is a 47 page document that has revision tips and case studies in it. Some of the case studies are different to the ones you have studied, but some are the same. It is worth getting hold of this document and printing it out.

South Koreans told to go home and make babies

South Korean government workers are being given an unusual instruction - go home and multiply.

At 1900 on Wednesday, officials at the Ministry of Health will turn off all the lights in the building. The country has one of the world's lowest birth rates, lower even than neighbouring Japan. South Korea's birth rate stood at 1.19 children per woman in 2008

Boosting the number of newborn children is a priority for the government, which is staring into the abyss of a rapidly ageing society, falling levels of manpower and spiralling health care costs.

The Ministry of Health, now sometimes jokingly referred to as the Ministry of Matchmaking, is in charge of spearheading this drive, and it clearly believes its staff should lead by example.

Generous gift vouchers are on offer for officials who have more than one child, and the department organises social gatherings in the hope of fostering love amongst its bureaucrats.

Although this seems like an odd story, it is a really useful example of how to manage populations and the concern an ageing population can cause.

Click here for further information
Click here for more detail

Click the title to read more and see a video clip

Earthquake in Haiti

On Tuesday a big earthquake hit the poor Caribbean country of Haiti.

The extent of the devastation from the huge quake in Haiti is slowly emerging thousands of people feared dead.

Jordan, Brazil and China have all reported deaths, and France says it fears the Tunisian head of the UN mission in Haiti has been killed.

The 7.0-magnitude quake, Haiti's worst in two centuries, struck south of the capital, Port-au-Prince, on Tuesday.

The Red Cross says up to three million people have been affected

The quake's epicentre was only 10 miles from the Capital city, Port-au-Prince, which has a population of about 1 million, and aftershocks as powerful as 5.9 rattled the city throughout the night and into today. Reports on casualties and damage were slow to get out of Haiti due to communication problems.

As the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti is ill-equipped to respond to such a disaster, lacking heavy equipment to move debris and a sufficient force of emergency personnel.


Click the headline to go to BBC reports about the disaster.

Interactive Atlas of the Millenium Development Goals

Have a look at this resource. It has been produced by the World Bank and shows how each country around the world fares against the Millenium Goals. This Online Atlas of the Millenium Development Goals takes each goal and resizes the world map to show the inequalities that currently exist.just click on one of the development goals on the right hand side of the screen, select a map and then resize it by clicking 'play'. The results are fascinating.

How can I revise?

• Flashcards: On small cards, summarise a case study into one (or both) sides of the cards and refer to it regularly. Make sure that you include key facts and number as you condense the case study to fit the card.
• Colour coding: colour code large pieces of text into sections. For example, it could be the social, economic and environmental impacts of the Cardiff Bay redevelopment.
• Memory tests: You could look at an important diagram (eg the cross section of a meander) for 20 seconds, then cover it over and draw what you remember. Then give yourself another 20 seconds to see what you missed and add it in. Eventually, you will be able to draw the sketch without looking at a copy.
• Key words test: You could ask someone to read out 10 definitions and you have to say what the key word is. Then you could try it the other way around which is harder with someone giving you a key word to define.
• Spider diagrams (mind maps): Write a key theme in the centre of an A3 piece of paper. Write the sub-themes around it with important ideas and case studies to back them up. Stick your finished spider diagram somewhere visible where you will be able to refer to it often (e.g. fridge door, bedroom wall).
• Practice exam questions: Look at the examples of past case study questions. Practice writing responses to these questions using the flashcards or colour coded case studies you have created.
• Summarising: Condense a section of text into a set number of bullet points.
• Reading aloud: Read a case study summary aloud, then try to say aloud all the facts and figures you remember without the summary. You could also read your keyword lists aloud.
• Repeated writing: Copy out pieces of information more than one time (five times would be appropriate). The repetition will help you to fix the facts in your memory.

For more revision and study skills tips use the links on the left hand panel.