Some exam details...

Farewell to Year 11s - enjoy the 'prom' tonight...

Thanks to my colleague Penny Parry from Rosemary Musker School for her booklet which I shall be using over the next few weeks with Year 10s...
Remember that the exam is on the 24th of June in the AFTERNOON session
It should take place in the Sports Hall, but I'll let you know if there's any change to that...
You will need to bring a BLACK BIRO to write with...

More pre-release posts to come over the weekend...

More of Konnie

Some more Sky Learning Revision videos with Konnie Huq can be seen by following the link to SKY LEARNING.

Our Big Fairtrade Adventure for Year 10

In last week's classroom lesson, we were looking at the similarities and differences between the two factories that were in the pre-release booklet: the textiles factory in Lesotho, and the Nokia mobile phone factory.
Tomorrow, we will be using a programme that was broadcast on Channel 4 a month or so back.
It's called "Our Big Fairtrade Adventure" and follows 3 students from a school in Oxfordshire who go to India to try to source an organic and fairtrade school uniform shirt.

We'll use some resources kindly produced by two of my online colleagues: Mr. Rayner's powerpoint, and Miss Walters' question paper, as well as the programme itself.
This will get us thinking about the conditions for the producers of products that we use everyday, and what we can do about it. It demonstrates the concept of INTERDEPENDENCE: that we are connected to people in other parts of the world by our actions, and also the idea of People as Consumers: what we choose to buy makes a difference to other people.

Svalbard: Polar Bears listed as threatened

The United States has listed the Polar Bear as a threatened species due to the decline in Arctic Sea Ice according to this BBC ARTICLE.
This means that one possible FUTURE that we suggested may well be a step closer to coming true...

Konnie's Revision Tips

Got an e-mail from Sky Learning to ask me to tell you all about a new video guide to revision they've put together...
Here's a video... (but not if you're looking at school...)

Pre Release 2008 Post 1 - Work for Tuesday 13th

Flickr User: Joe Dunckley - kindly made available via Creative Commons
Development work at Broadmead Shopping Centre

This is the first of many posts relating to the Pre Release booklet for the Year 10 Pilot examination.

These will continue for the next 2 weeks of term, but crucially, through the half term holiday and the two weeks of WORK EXPERIENCE.
It is important that you come back at the end of Work Experience having done a short section of preparation each day...The first post relates to the FIRST PART of the booklet.
Look at the images above, which are of BROADMEAD shopping centre in Bristol.
This has just had a lot of money spent on it, perhaps to allow it to compete with CRIBBS CAUSEWAY: an Out of Town shopping centre.

Remember the old joke: If you've seen one out of town shopping centre, you've seen "a mall"....
(OK, so I had to explain it to some of you....)

COVER WORK FOR 13th MAY: Apologies for absence - I'm down at the Royal Geographical Society today, so it's for a good Geographical reason...

1. How does Broadmead compare to the MALL ?
2. Why did it need to be redeveloped ?
3. Visit the BROADMEAD website and build up a comparison table between the 2 locations.
4. How easy is it to get to each of the 2 locations ? - Use the DESTINATION BROADMEAD site.
5. How have CBDs changed over the last decade ?
6. Compare BROADMEAD with the new VANCOUVER SHOPPING CENTRE in King's Lynn - source 2 images of King's Lynn's new shops and annotate them as much as possible - paste them into powerpoint and use callouts to add the labels...
7. Below is a picture of Norfolk Street (in King's Lynn) - how do the shops on this type of street differ from those in the very centre of town ? What has happened to the shops in this image in the last six months ?
8. What changes would you expect to happen in this area in the future ?
   

Image by Flickr user Joseph McGarraghy

Do they mean us ?

A new tourist guide to the UK has been produced, and it includes some surprising (perhaps) descriptions of the country and its population.

The BBC ARTICLE includes some extracts from the updated ROUGH GUIDE.

What image does this give of ENGLAND.

Some amusing HAVE YOUR SAY comments already available.
Some of these pick up on CULTURAL ASPECTS of the UK, which would be useful for Year 11s for next year (pay attention Year 10s)

What do you think about these examples from the HAVE YOUR SAY section...
Which one would you MOST or LEAST agree with ?

1. Bacon butties, Sunday roast and chicken tikka massala

2. They missed out, uncouth, uncivil, uneducated, unmannered & prone to mindless street violence prefaced by the words "Wot you lookin at!!" I'd say that most of the world see's us like this, not the 'civilised islands of culture' that the BBC, and this Government like to portray as "This England" whilst happily lowering standards in all walks of life in the name of equality!

3. I think they have it pretty sussed, people buy all these trashy z list celeb mags why ill never know. they are a total waste of trees. People cant go out for a couple of drinks and act normally people just go out to get drunk because their lives are so sad and pathetic. Great britain certainly isnt great any longer

4. For all our overweight, binge-drinking, celebrity-obsessed TV addicts this is still the greatest country on earth. The people are second to none and sure we might not all agree on everything but they`re OUR people to fight with and nobody elses. And watch us all pull together in a crisis. What we have is unique in the world, heritage, history, the london taxi cab, the monarchy, the country pub, amazing countryside, bluebells, morris dancers, the list goes on. Be proud of who and what you are.

5. It describes a minority, the sort they love to parade on TV as though they are typical of society and if you're any different you're tragically old-fashioned.It doesn't describe the majority, who are still hard-working, decent, quiet people - you just don't hear about them, and they assist by not being natural attention-seekers.All nations have both types, it's not unique to England. This is just a cheap publicity stunt for the book. It won't make me feel ashamed to be English.