Welcome back!!

What an interesting summer it has been.  Personally I have been to Greece for the first time and loved it (apart from the extreme heat), I climbed another volcano and went deep into a huge cave system.  The UK was a bit cooler, and I finally got to see a stage performance of 1984, one of my favourite books, and just weeks after the final an FA Cup qualifying game. (1-1, a missed penalty and a red card) I always look forward to hearing the amazing places you have visited over the summer, please feel free to share them during the next three weeks.

 Over the past 8 weeks or so there have been so many stories happening around the world.  Who would have thought a country with more volcanoes from professional footballers would beat the country who 'invented football'?  That the UK would choose to 'Brexit', whatever that ultimately ends up meaning?  Or that the UK would surpass it's medal total from the London Olympics in Rio?  Globally we are witnessing the US presidential race heat up as November approaches and policing under the microscope more than ever.  

Geography has been in the news throughout the summer, much of what is above could be looked at through Geographical glasses, fracking refuses to frack off despite the dangers it poses.  Nuclear power is still on the UK agenda, linking strongly to China one of the world's super powers.  Flooding has hit parts of the USA with incredible footage of a woman being rescued from her car moments before drowning along with her dog.  

Sadly just this week Italy has experienced a terrible earthquake, something Romania is no stranger to.  At the time of writing the death toll is at 290 with huge amounts of damage.  I will put together a more detailed post on this over the week.  As somewhere I have huge affection for my thoughts are with Italy and everyone affected along with Burma which also suffered an Earthquake though it appears the death toll is significantly lower.  Read more about why there were different effects on the Earth Story Facebook page.

So a new term, this year KS3 have a bit more time for Geography, we will have 3 hours per fortnight.  This means one week you will have 2 lessons, and the week after 1 rotating through the year.   What will you be studying in KS3?  (KS4 and KS5 information will follow later)

Year 7 

Introducing Geography and the Geography of Romania and EU

Maps and Mapping

Africa

Volcanoes

Rivers

Year 8

Weather

Population

Cities

Climate Change

Coasts

Year 9

The Earth's Resources

Development

The Middle East

Russia

The Physical Geography of Romania

Please be aware that at times we will deviate from this to incorporate significant global events, last year we started the year exploring the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe, migration of course being a key issues with regards to population.

You will still be assessed using the schools assessment week, based on feedback from last year I will be adapting the criteria to make them simpler to use.

For resources I have requested the use of Kerboodle online text books which will improve the flexibility of our course, and means one less book to carry around and should mean less paper being used.  This will be used along with a range of other resources which are currently being developed with further information to follow soon.

After quite a lengthy post all that is left to say is enjoy the year and comment/email me with any questions, you will all have my email address.

Good luck!!