Welcome to Reigate College’s Geography Department.
My name is Lil Pryar and I’m the Head of the Geography Department at Reigate College. I’m looking forward to welcoming you in person at the beginning of the academic year and starting on our exciting course programme.
In preparation for you starting and to help give you a head-start with the course, I’m going to be setting a series of activities for you to complete over the coming months. These will give you a flavour of what’s involved with studying A Level Geography. It would also be helpful for you to keep up to date with the news, so that you’re aware of what’s happening in the world, especially with respect to natural disasters. I look forward to discussing your discoveries with you in September.
The tasks are organised in three distinct steps and should all be completed by Choices Day on 25 August 2026. This is to give you the best insight into what the courses will be like and/or help prepare you for them.
Please note, some Course Leaders (for example for Music) may release their tasks earlier, as they may form part of the College’s audition process. If this applies to you, you’ll be notified separately.
New Starters Course Tasks and Activities
| Release date | Suggested Completion Dates | |
| Explore your Subject | 1 June | 1 July |
| Get Going | 1 June | 1 August |
| Aim High | 1 June | 1 September |
Develop your research skills
Purpose of the task: to develop research skills and prepare you for your coursework pilot study.
Task: Get ready to follow the news closely over the next two years!
There has never been a better or more important time to study Geography. With growing interest in issues such as climate change, migration, environmental degradation and social cohesion, geography is one of the most relevant courses you could choose to study. It is essential, therefore, that you keep up to date with current issues. Download the BBC news app, and start reading the news every day. Throughout your time at Reigate, you can print any relevant articles and put them in your files ready for revision – the more up-to-date your knowledge, the more you will impress the examiner.
Task: Developing Your Research Skills
At A Level, you will be asked to carry out your own geography research, both for lessons and most importantly for your coursework. The task below is designed to help you practise these skills, and prepare you for your coursework pilot study which you will be doing over Christmas in your lower sixth year. Don’t lose this research as you will be going back to it in December!
Your Local Area
Research your local area and summarise your findings in a detailed poster or report. Your research could include:
- Crime rates in your local area – how do these compare to other areas/ national averages? Home | Police.uk (www.police.uk)
- Pollution levels in your local area – how does this compare to other areas/ national averages?
UK Emissions Interactive Map
CDRC Mapmaker: Access to Healthy Assets & Hazards (Particulate Matter(PM10) Level) - Deprivation in your local area – how does this rank compared to nationally? You could break this down further and look at deprivation in terms of income, employment, education, crime etc (click “switch domain” at the top of the link to do this) Indices of Deprivation 2015 and 2019 (communities.gov.uk)
- House prices in your local area – how do these compare to other areas/ national averages? Zoopla.co.uk
- Transport in your local area – how accessible is it? Satellite images on Google maps is a good way to research this, along with train timetables on National Rail, and bus timetables.
- Community engagement in your local area
- Anything else you are interested in
- Watch this YouTube video and read this resource on the hydrological cycle. Use this information to draw and annotate an image of the hydrological cycle. Underneath, define all key terms (or you could define these on your diagram). This will need to be brought in to your first lesson.
- Read this article from The Guardian, this article from OECD, and this article from Bloomberg and do your own research. Use these to produce a one-page report on how AI is resulting in water insecurity and what the social, economic and environmental impacts of this are.
Over the summer, start to explore some of the following sources to gain useful background information and insights. You should continue to do this throughout your Geography A Level, so please save these links. This wider reading is essential if you want to get a top grade in Geography.
Read newspaper articles regularly:
- https://www.theguardian.com/science/geography
- https://www.independent.co.uk/environment
- https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/geography
Listen to Podcasts:
- Royal Geographical Society Podcasts
- National Geographic Weekend
- A VerySpatial podcast
- School of Geography and the Environment Podcasts from Oxford University
Read Books:
- Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall
- Factfulness by Hans Rosling
- Origins: How the Earth made us by Lewis Dartnell
- The almighty dollar by Dharshini David
- 10 Billion by Danny Dorling
Head of Geography
