Gayhurst School

“Geography is important because we are inextricably linked to the world we live in. We can only live on this planet with knowledge of how it works and a commitment to respect it”. Anon

General aims

At Gayhurst we are committed to improving the pupil's knowledge and understanding of the world they live in. To instill a curiosity in its human and physical aspects, as well as the need to take care of the environment for future generations.

Specifically the aims are:

To enable the children to gain knowledge and understanding of places in the world.
To increase the pupils' knowledge of other cultures and in doing so, teach a respect and understanding of what it means to be good citizens in a multi- cultural society.
To enable pupils to know and understand environmental problems at a local, regional and global scale.
To encourage in pupils a commitment to sustainable development and an appreciation of what ‘global citizenship' means.
To teach the pupils graphic skills, including how to use, draw and interpret maps.
To develop a variety of other skills, including those of enquiry, problem solving, ICT, investigations and how to present their conclusions in the most appropriate way.
To teach fieldwork techniques and in year 7 produce a project which will be used in the C.E. examination.

Teaching Style

We use a variety of teaching methods and learning styles in geography lessons, encouraging the boys to ask as well as answer geographical questions. We use a variety of data, such as maps, statistics, graphs, pictures, aerial photos and enable pupils to use ICT where this is appropriate.
We recognise the fact that there are pupils of different abilities and we provide suitable learning opportunities for all the pupils by matching the challenge of the task to the ability of the pupil. We achieve this by;

Setting common tasks which are open ended and can have a variety of responses.
Setting tasks of increasing difficulty, some children not completing all the tasks.