The Geography Department finally made it to Iceland on our long awaited, COVID disrupted trip during the Easter holidays. The experience exceeded the expectations of the staff and students who went. They witnessed some truly breath-taking sights across a jam-packed 4 days. Here is a selection of the MANY photos that the students took, showing the amazing scenery and the good fun that was had!

What a truly amazing trip! When asked, there were lots of highlights that the Geographers suggested, but the glacier walk came up most often. The “Viking Protein Drink” at the ice cream farm perhaps didn’t score so well, but that meant more for me! The Blue Lagoon seems to have been the perfect way for everyone to end their trip too.

A massive thank you to Mrs Singleton for all her organisational skills. Thank you also to Mr Ward, Miss Garlick and Miss Starkey for their help and brilliant company, Mrs Honeyman for being base contact and giving loads of useful advice, the staff at Rayburn for putting on such a great itinerary, the family team at our accommodation (including the dogs!) and to our awesome coach driver, Baddi! A massive thank you also goes from me directly to the students; each and everyone of them was a superstar. They were kind, helpful, polite, enthusiastic and up for some fun. I really enjoyed sharing Iceland with you all.

The 2025 trip is in the planning stages already, so current Year 8 and 9, look out for details coming soon!

Mr Bowles

Curriculum Leader for Geography

Lower School Geography

As we draw towards the end of a long but productive term, I wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the fantastic work on display in the Geography Department at the moment.

In Year 7, students have created cardboard contour landscapes that have really helped their understanding of how to interpret OS maps.

Year 8 have produced some fantastic Bob the Boulder storyboards, giving them an overview of the process, landforms and changes we see in rivers as they flow from source to mouth. Bob has had some wild adventures!

Year 9 have been working on the global fashion industry, and have explored the geography of a pair of jeans, looking at the materials and transport used to get them to shops near us.

GCSE Geography

Year 10 have not long completed their first go at a GCSE assessment and overall, we were pleased with the results. Remember, Year 10 that MRIs and lots of practise makes perfect!  Well done on hitting the ground running this term and making a flying start to the GCSE course. Onwards and upwards!

A particular well done to our Year 11 GCSE Geographers; it has been a long term with a period of Mock exams at the start of November. The Geography Mock results were pleasing overall, and we have some detailed performance analysis with classes. Year 11 are on their second to last topic from the syllabus content, meaning we will be able to embark on an extended period of revision, exam practise and preparation. Keep your eyes on the prize, Year 11!

Some Christmas Geography

Below are a couple of interesting maps that I have found that detail the different meals used to celebrate Christmas and some of the more unusual Christmas traditions around the world. One that isn’t on the map that I found bizarre was that Christmas dinner in Japan is KFC!

Have a great holiday and if you are celebrating Christmas, don’t forget to ask Santa for a globe of your very own (make sure you recycle all that packaging).  Merry Christmas from Mr Bowles, Mr Ward and Mrs Singleton. Ho! Ho! Ho!

Mr Bowles

Curriculum Leader for Geography

Once again this year, Year 8 have had fun working on the life story of everyone’s favourite rock, Bob the Boulder! The level of creativity combined with the excellent Geographical content have blown me away. Images of some of my favourite pieces of work are below, and if you want a closer look, you can come down and check out the Bob Gallery on the Humanities corridor. 

Special mention goes to Evie F; yet another amazing model to accompany her work. She has picked up where she left off last year on her Year 7 Treasure Map. Well done, Evie – geotastic!

Mr Bowles

Curriculum Leader for Geography

Volcano Competition Winners

Further to the article on the Year 9 Volcano Model Competition Winners last time round, the winning trio have been along to the Geography Department to collect their prizes. Well done again to Fatimah Zahra P, Mariya M and Safiyyah M.  The winning entry is below. Enjoy the lava lamps, girls!

Where’s Earthy?

Email your answer to g.bowles@penworthamgirls.lancs.sch.uk. You must be as specific as possible with your answer. Bonus Question! Which two cities does the bridge in the photo link together?

The Geography Libraries

A reminder that the Geography Department have both a small physical and a virtual library that students can access to further read around the subject.

Outside Room 39, students can find books on maps, oceans, travel, mountains and many more. Have a look, find something you fancy and bring the book to Mr Bowles to sign out. New books have been added recently, all related to recent topics of study.

In the SharePoint of their school Office 365 account, students will find the Geography Virtual Library (once in SharePoint, you can search for it).

Here, students will find separate pages for each year group containing suggested reading for those keen and interested Geographers. Clicking on a book cover will give you a sample of the book, usually about 20-30 pages, and if you like it you can track it down on Amazon, second hand on eBay or at your local bookshop.

Have a great break

Remember, you are always a Geographer, both in the classroom and away from it so try to spread your wings a little and see some of our local countryside if you can. If you are going further afield, have fun and be a respectful and interested tourist.  Regardless of where you are off to, don’t forget to send us a postcard from your travels. Have a great summer and bon voyage from Mr Bowles, Mr Ward and Mrs Singleton.

(PS – don’t forget to send a postcard to the Geography Department for our collection!)

Mr Bowles,

Curriculum Leader for Geography

Once again, the submissions for this year’s Volcano Model Project from Year 9 students have been absolutely OUTSTANDING! The Geography department are in agreement that the standard is as high, if not higher, than it has ever been – we don’t know how they do it! This year, we feel the students have really pushed themselves to be as creative as they can. We have had students making volcanoes from papier-mâché, builders foam, modelling clay and of course lots of CAKE! We have also seen the introduction of a knitted volcano and some Lego entries. We are really impressed with the level of detail that the students are going into and would like to thank them for the time and hard work they have put into creating such amazing pieces of work!

Merits and Head’s Commendations were awarded to a large number of entries so the students need to come and check their volcanoes. The staff have also selected their personal favourites and decided on an overall winner…

Highly Commended:

Staff picks:

The winner:

Overall Winner: We all loved this model by Fatimah-Zahra P, Mariya M and Safiyyah M. The magma chamber is located well below ground level, which many models get wrong. The cutaway section has clear layers, the annotations are detailed and accurate (many models had very brief labels) and finally the cotton wool ash cloud was great! Well done, girls!

Mr Bowles
Curriculum leader for Geography