Sir, what are we doing today?

This seems the most important question a pupil should ask. If you don’t know why you are in a class, and most importantly what it is you are meant to be learning or doing, then there is not much point in being there. It always helps to know what we are going to be learning.

One general approach we can apply to every lesson in geography is to think 5 Ws. This is a list of 5 questions, all beginning with W  we should be asking about any place we study.

Where is this place?

What is it like?

What makes it the same as/different from my home area?

Who lives here?

Why is this place the way it is?

We don’t always need to ask all 5 questions, and there are others we ask instead, but this is a useful starting point, and most importantly gets us thinking about the idea of place.

Next-building a geographical vocabulary: what words can we use to describe places.