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Department Reviews

GEOGRAPHY

The Geography department has once again enjoyed a hugely successful and enjoyable year. The primary highlight was undoubtedly the expedition to Iceland last summer. Forty girls and five staff spent a wonderful time experiencing numerous awe-inspiring geological features, from crashing waterfalls and erupting geysers, to recently active volcanoes and rapidly receding glaciers. To be able to witness such incredible Geography first hand was a most inspiring experience, although the rate at which one of the glaciers had receded since my last school expedition there three years ago was a stark measure of the changes being experienced by our global climate.

The girls excelled themselves in the public exams, gaining exceptional results at both A Level and GCSE. 87% of the girls gained A grades at A Level, whilst 96% gained an A* or A grade at GCSE, and these results represent continued improvements from the successes of 2008. 15 girls were successful in their applications to read Geography at Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh and a variety of other top universities, and for the second year running we were very proud to have one of the top performers in the country. Lucy Arkwright, who completed her A Level last summer, gained one of the ten highest marks from 3985 entries for the Edexcel paper.

This year saw the start of the new A Level syllabus. The course we have chosen to follow is designed to be far more contemporary and relevant in its nature and the girls have thoroughly enjoyed exploring issues and examples that are directly part of their lives. I have always believed that Geography should be a subject taught predominantly in the present, with a few references to the past and some postulation about the global future, and this new course allows this to happen in an interesting and engaging manner.

The IB Geography course has proven a great success with the girls. Again it emphasizes the contemporary nature of the subject, but also gives the girls great scope for their own independent learning. Fieldwork for both AS and IB was carried out on a thoroughly enjoyable weekend in South Devon. The IB girls completed studies of a local river and of Dartmouth as a tourist destination, whilst the AS girls found out about the rebranding of the South Hams and the coastal management that has occurred around Start Bay. Later in the year the AS girls also visited Birmingham for a day to witness the amazing transformation that the city centre there has undergone in the last 15 years, culminating in the redevelopment of the famous Bull Ring shopping centre.

In Lower College, Geography Club continues to thrive, with the girls undertaking a range of Geographical projects throughout the year. The group were once again visited by Zoolab, with their assortment of weird and wonderful rainforest creatures, whilst activities have also included volcano making, T-shirt designing and making Christmas cards. Fieldwork for the Lower College girls included the LC1s enjoying a morning studying the area around Waitrose in Cheltenham, whilst the LC2s travelled to the Forest of Dean to measure aspects of the Blackpool Brook.

This year has also seen the department begin to work more with the other local schools, something that we are hoping to develop further in the next few years. Recently Miss Matthews lead an excellent session for 16 year 5’s from Whaddon primary school, based on sweat shop labour and fair trade. After a quick introduction about the sweat shops in India, the class then created their own 'sweat shop' where they competed to make paper bags just like some of the street children in India. This process was subsequently linked to how much it costs to live, and not surprisingly, they found that they had not made enough paper bags to be able to survive in anywhere near decent living conditions. The session concluded with a short explanation of what Fair Trade is and the always popular chocolate taste test! It was clear that from watching the girls and boys work, and from talking to their teacher, that they thoroughly enjoyed the session.

Finally a mention must be made of one leaving member of staff. Robert Homan has been teaching at CLC for 33 years and has been a stalwart of the Geography department. He has a wonderful way of extracting the very best from all the girls that he teaches and it is no surprise that many of the old girls that visit the department seek him out to thank him for inspiring them in their Geographic studies. He will be sorely missed by all of us

News

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