Schools File

Your Local Area: Teachers’ Notes
Author: Ruth Thomson
This series of six books offers ideas for how children can take part in a practical investigation
of a local area. There are five photocopiable worksheets for each book. Some are templates for
charts and group surveys. Children can take these out to complete, when investigating their
locality. Others are class-based activities with space for observations or drawings, or pictures
to label, compare or sort. The activities will help consolidate children’s learning about key ideas
in the books. Children will need access to the books in order to complete many of the tasks.
HOMES
The Homes worksheets ask children to identify different types of homes and ways of marking the
boundaries of their space, as well as identifying features of houses, the services they use and their
names or numbers.
Worksheets: Types of home; A boundaries survey; Label a house; Services in your home;
Design a name plaque
RIVERS
The Rivers worksheets include geographical tasks about identifying the facets of a river, recording
signs and leisure activities, as well as emphasising the importance of river safety and a chart to record
personal water use.
Worksheets: Part of a river; Signs and names; Leisure activities: River Safety; My own water use
SCHOOL
The School worksheets help children to look closer at their school environment, both indoors
and outdoors, to discover who works at their school and to notice clues about old school buildings.
Worksheets: Improving the school environment; Noisy or quiet?; Playtime; People who work at school;
An old school
SEASIDE
The Seaside worksheets emphasise the seasonal nature of holidays, jobs, activities and shops for
children to compare with their own local area and also ask children to compare seaside holidays
in the past with now.
Worksheets: Seaside holidays then and now; Beach shops; Seaside jobs; Seaside activities;
Seaside weather (To undertake this last task, ask children to consult the website
www.wunderground.com/global/UK.html to plot seasonal weather averages on the chart.)
SHOPS
The Shops worksheets look at different types of shopping experiences in a shopping mall,
high street and local convenience store, ask children to consider their family’s own shopping habits
and encourage observation of shops signs.
Worksheets: Spot the difference; A high street survey; Convenience store goods; My family’s
shopping habits; Shop signs
TRANSPORT
The Transport worksheets encourage children to look more closely at local traffic flow, road signs
and safety features on roads, as well as looking at different types of transport and goods vehicles.
Worksheets: A traffic survey; Road signs; Slow down!; A vehicle chart; Lorry spotting
Your Local Area © Wayland 2010. These worksheets may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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Name:
Date:
People who work at school
Fill in the rest of this chart, listing the different jobs that
people do at your school. How many people do each
job? How many people work at your school altogether?
Job
Number
Head teacher
Class teacher
Classroom assistant
Learning objective: To collect and record information.
Wayland, Your Local Area, School
© Wayland 2010. This worksheet may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school.
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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Name:
Date:
Improving the school environment
Do a class survey to find out which of these features people
think might most help improve your school environment,
both indoors and outdoors. Ask pupils for their own ideas,
as well. Make a chart of your results. You could discuss the
best ideas with your head teacher.
more decoration
more signs
more quiet spaces
more litter bins
Other ideas
more plants and flowers
more play equipment
more places to sit
Environment survey
More litter bins
More decoration
More plants and flowers
More signs
More play equipment
More places to sit
More quiet spaces
Learning objective: To ask and respond to geographical questions.
Wayland, Your Local Area, School
© Wayland 2010. This worksheet may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school.
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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Name:
Date:
Noisy or quiet?
Go round your school and note on the chart which places are noisy
or quiet. Which are quiet all the time? Which are always noisy? Which
places are noisy at some times of day but not at others?
hall
playground
school gates
library
Places
Noisy all the time
Quiet all the time
Noisy sometimes (when?)
Learning objective: To recognise patterns.
Wayland, Your Local Area, School
© Wayland 2010. This worksheet may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school.
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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Name:
Date:
An old school
Use the clues in these photographs to describe this school, which is
more than 100 years old.
date plaque
How many storeys high is the school?
What is hidden behind the high wall?
What do you notice about the windows?
What sign can you spot above each
door? What does that tell you?
How was the
school heated?
Why do you think
there are so many
chimneys?
Learning objective: To use evidence to answer questions.
Wayland, Your Local Area, School
© Wayland 2010. This worksheet may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school.
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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Name:
Date:
Playtime
Do a playground survey to find out what pupils like doing best
at playtime. You could do separate surveys for infants and juniors
and compare the differences between them.
Playground games
and activities
Number of children
Football
Other ball games
Running games
Skipping games
Quiet games
Chatting
Playing on big equipment
Learning objective: To collect and record information.
Wayland, Your Local Area, School
© Wayland 2010. This worksheet may be reproduced for class use solely within the purchaser’s school.
www.waylandbooks.co.uk
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