Improving Core Geography Knowledge

One of the most infuriating thing I hear as a Geography teacher is people saying that they have no idea where in the world where some places, countries, rivers or mountains are. Parents often say that they have to laugh when students say things like Africa is within Europe and that The Alps are in Scotland. In recent years we have seen a real push to make Geography more enjoyable and interesting to our students. This is great as we are now studying such topics as Geography of sport, crime or fashion which are interesting to our students. A level topics of Development, Globalisation and World Cities are really preparing students for the real world they are due to grow up within.

However,  surely at the core of all this we need to understand how these places fit with one another to fully understand how they relate. So this year we have decided to use homework time for our Year 7s to address this imbalance of what could be called Core Geographical Knowledge.

The document below is the homework booklet that Year 7 will receive in their first week at Arthur Terry. The basic principle is that they we are encouraging our students to improve their independent learning skills from the very start of Geography at Arthur Terry. It will also address a gap of 'core knowledge' that may currently exist in our KS3 scheme of work. In essence students will be creating their own Atlas over the two years. It also highlights the importance of homework, project work and times get students into the habit of revising and recalling information.



We are currently creating a similar project for the next two terms for Year 7 looking at Africa before moving on to North, Central and South America and if proves to be successful we will carry on into Year 8 too with Asia, Middle East and Oceania.

Hopefully this means our students wont grow up with knowledge like the lady in the video below!