Rocks, volcanoes, glaciers and intrepid exploration—it can only be a new term of geography, and what a start the boys enjoyed.
In Y5, the boys, who now enjoy topic lessons combining history, geography and religious studies to help smooth the transition from their early years in Y3 and Y4, enjoyed a treasure hunt to discover their new topic for the term. Armed with maps, the boys needed to solve clues hidden around the school and plot them on a map with appropriate geographical symbols to move on to the next clue and solve the mystery.
For Y6 boys, their topic launch rocked—quite literally—as the boys got busy smashing volcanic rocks known as geodes to discover the crystal within and reveal their topic: rocks, fossils and dinosaurs.
Y7 boys were thrown into disaster management for their first lesson as they were challenged to re-enact the devastating volcanic eruption on the island of Montserrat in the Caribbean. Their classroom became the incident room for the disaster as the boys, working together in teams as geologists, information coordinators and crisis managers, made crucial decisions to protect the island’s inhabitants. As with the real disaster, teamwork, strong communication, analysis and logical reasoning were all key as the boys assessed and responded to the changing data and ‘live’ reports coming in through their walkie-talkies from the 10 News helicopter pilots in the air.
For our Y8 boys, it was also a battle for survival, as they stepped back to 1907 to join Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to the South Pole. With just £2 16s 2 1/2d (£2.81 in today’s money) to purchase food and equipment for the long hazardous journey, the boys, working in teams, needed to decide which would be the best provisions to buy and how much of each would be required to get them to the Antarctic.
