I am currently the curriculum team leader for geography at The Corsham School in Wiltshire and have been teaching for almost 20 years. I am hoping to provide a variety of well-planned and engaging lessons and resources across all key stages. The majority of my GCSE resources are based upon the current OCR B syllabus (Geography for Enquiring Minds) and the A-level resources closely follow the current AQA A-level specification.
I am currently the curriculum team leader for geography at The Corsham School in Wiltshire and have been teaching for almost 20 years. I am hoping to provide a variety of well-planned and engaging lessons and resources across all key stages. The majority of my GCSE resources are based upon the current OCR B syllabus (Geography for Enquiring Minds) and the A-level resources closely follow the current AQA A-level specification.
This is a lesson used to address the demands of 3.1.1.6 case studies part of unit 3.1.1 Water and carbon cycles of the 2 year AQA geography A-level (7037). This lesson allows students to apply their understanding of the water cycle to a river catchment at a local scale (River Exe, Devon). The lesson starts by introducing the students to the River Exe and its characteristics using a group work activity where students have three attempts to match the data provided to the correct statement (answers included). Students then interpret a hydrograph showing the regime of the river Exe. Having read the information on pages 52/53 of the AQA geography textbook (Oxford), students then complete the template suggesting how each of the factors listed affect the water cycle in the River Exe catchment. To reinforce the students learning and place specific details of the case study there is a version of the activity know as quiz, quiz, change where the students are each given a statement with a question and answer on. They move around the room asking their question to their classmates. If answered correctly students swap statements if not the correct answer is read out before moving on.
This resource is about the issue of food waste in the UK. It contains an entrance activity where students have to see how many different types of food they can spot in the photo.
The resource contains a statement activity where students in groups have three chances to see if they can match with statements with the correct number. After each round get one student from each team to come up and get there answers checked. The winners are the group with the most correct answers after the three attempts.
The resource also contains a question race activity. In groups, students are given a copy of the food waste article and they are given about 10 minutes to see how many questions they can complete. I normally lay the questions out at the front of class (enough for several groups) and then when the timer starts they come up to get their first question. When they have found the answer they write in on the question sheet and bring it back up to the front where they collect the next question and so on.
Finally, at the end of the power point there are several slides with questions to get students to think about the issue of food waste. I tend to read out the question and then the students move to the side of the room that matches their answer e.g. no to the left, yes to the right.
This resource contains four revision templates that directly address the content demands of the topics that make up the physical unit Our Natural World (01) of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring MInds) GCSE.
These templates have been extremely useful for the students to summarise and condense their classwork when it comes to revision.
This resource contains four revision templates that directly address the content demands of the topics that make up the physical unit People and Society (02) of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring MInds) GCSE.
These templates have been extremely useful for the students to summarise and condense their classwork when it comes to revision.
This lesson is the ideal first lesson for introducing geography to year 7. The lesson gets students thinking about the world around them and allows them to revisit any geography they may have done at KS2. The students are asked to write down on post-it notes any words/features that they think are relevant to the subject. Students then attempt to classify them into groups. It is a fun, active activity to get students involved with the subject and one another.
This is a lesson taken from Topic 8: Resource Reliance of the GCSE geography OCR B specification. The lesson objective is about evaluating the use of food banks to help achieve food security in the UK.
The lesson contains a fact finding activity where students in groups are given 3 attempts to match the statements to the correct numbers. This is a great activity to introduce the issue.
The lesson also has an activity where students have to try and suggest 10 items of food that they would expect to find in a 3 day food package provided by food banks.
The lesson goes on to look at the Trussell Trust and focuses on the West End food bank in Newcastle. The lesson contains some detailed modelling of how to attempt the more challenging extended questions based on higher order thinking skills.
This resource contains three case studies relevant to the content of Topic 3: Distinctive landscapes of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) GCSE specification.
Each case study has been written up to directly match the demands of the specification content and will hopefully prepare students for any possible exam questions.
This resource contains three case studies relevant to the content of Topic 1: Global Hazards of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) GCSE specification.
Each case study has been written up to directly match the demands of the specification content and will hopefully prepare students for any possible exam questions.
This is the second lesson of a series of lessons based upon the water and carbon cycle unit (3.1.1) of the 2 year AQA geography A-level (7037). This lesson allows students to become familiar with the distribution and magnitude of the Earth’s major stores of water. It includes several activity sheets that I have created to help develop the students understanding of the Earth’s main sub-systems. There is a fact finding activity where students are given a piece of information on entry to the lesson and they have to use these to complete a headline/summary activity sheet on the major stores of water. There is also a key term heads and tails activity sheet, a summary template that was set as homework where students use their lesson notes and own research to consolidate their learning and some extra reading on water in the lithosphere.
This is one of several case studies that I have written up to support the revision of my students. This case study is structured to address the section about a non-UK based natural weather hazard event arising from extreme weather conditions from Topic 1: Global Hazards of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) specification.
This resource was created to address the demands of the first bit of content from Topic 5: Urban Futures of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) specification.
The lesson helps students with the skill of describing information shown on graphs and charts that is so integral to the GCSE course. The main idea I use to help students is the acronym GCSE - General comment, Specific Data and Exceptions.
The lesson focuses on rates of urbanisation in contrasting countries and contains a fun higher / lower activity for the plenary. All resources for the lesson have been provided and it has a nice differentiated summary activity.
In the past students have created their own choropleth map using percentage urban data and have then described the patterns shown.
This is a simple mix and match key terminology worksheet that I created for Topic 5: Urban Futures from the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring MInds) specification.
The key terms and their definition have been mixed up. It normally takes about 30 minutes to complete and is usually set as a homework. I then do a quick pop quiz to test their understanding.
This resource contains content overview sheets for all eight topics of the OCR B GCSE Geography specification. These are given to students at the start of every topic and allow them to track their own learning.
They are also extremely useful when it comes to revision and allows students to make sure they spend time addressing all aspects of content of each topic and reminds them of the case studies used in each topic.
This resource contains a lesson and a variety of worksheets and activities created to address the demands of question for investigation 3.1 What makes a landscape distinctive from Topic 3: Distinctive landscapes of the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) GCSE specification.
The lessons main activity is where students study four different UK landscapes (pohotgraphs provided) and carry out an environmental impact assessment for each. This works well as a carousel activity where students (in groups) are given around 5 minutes to complete their EIA before moving onto the next landscape.
This activity allows students to plot the path taken by Hurricane Dorian using coordinates. The lesson allows students to differentiate between a tropical depression, a tropical storm and a hurricane. It can also be used to introduce or reinforce previous learning on longitude and latitude. It is suitable for all key stages and can be adapted for any tropical storm.
This is the second lesson of a series of lessons based upon the Resource Security unit (3.2.5) of the 2 year AQA geography A-level (7037). This lesson allows students to become familiar with the main components of demand for energy and the energy mix of two contrasting countries (UK and Mail). Students use the data to draw two pie charts and then complete a cloze exercise (sheet provided) describing the energy mix of countries.
This is a revision template that I have created for Topic 1: Global Hazards from the OCR B GCSE Geography Specification. All the headings and side headings are directly linked to the content of the unit. Students have really benefited from condensing the classwork in their exercise books down onto the revision template.
This resource focuses on the two main elements - rural to urban migration and internal growth that are causing rapid urbanisation in LIDCs. This lesson forms part of Topic 5: Urban Futures from the OCR B (Geography for Enquiring Minds) specification.
The lesson reinforces students understanding of push and pull factors and introduces internal growth.
There are a number of differentiated resources for students of all abilities.
This is a resource that I give to my GCSE students at the start of every topic. It allows them to become familiar with the content of the topic including any relevant case studies and specialist terminology. The students find them extremely useful especially when structuring their revision.