Geography
Our intent
Geography is a subject that helps students to make sense of the world around them and to understand their place within it. It gives students the opportunity to find answers to some of the issues that affect our world, and how we can understand the social, economic and environmental factors which shape and change our world across varying scales, from seconds to millennia. Whilst other disciplines may study landscapes, the atmosphere, people and culture, the built environment and political territories, geography is the only discipline that concerns itself with the relationships between these resulting in spatial differentiation. Geography also provides students with the means to think about the world in new ways. We call this thinking geographically.
Our curriculum intends to explore 5 key umbrella themes: Human and physical interactions; climate change; Geomorphology; development; sustainability, and throughout we aim to develop and revisit essential geographical skills.
Principles
Through the studying of geography, students:
- Develop and extend their knowledge of locations, places, environments and processes, and of different scales including global; and of social, political and cultural contexts
- Gain understanding of the interactions between people and environments, change in places and processes over space and time
- Develop and extend their competence in a range of skills including those used in fieldwork, in using maps and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and in researching secondary evidence, including digital sources
- Apply geographical knowledge, understanding, skills and approaches appropriately and creatively to real world contexts, including fieldwork, and to contemporary situations and issues.
- Geography will enable students to hear viewpoints that are contrary or in opposition to their own and will encourage them to develop their debating skills.
- Through independent research, students will effectively learn how to create case-studies and identify factual evidence that can be used to support their studies.
Key Stage 3 content
We include a range of subject areas that will attract all students and will give a broad and comprehensive understanding of geography from a range of scales (from the UK to globally). In addition to this, the topics are most of all contemporary and this will empower students to see geography in the real world and to apply what they learn in the classroom to the outside world. Our KS3 curriculum continues to be planned, reviewed and developed by the department so that we can incorporate the knowledge of our students into its delivery.
Key Stage 4 content
The topics we cover include:
-People & Society: Urban Futures, Dynamic Development, UK in the 21st Century, Resource Reliance
-Our Natural World: Global Hazards, Climate Change, Distinctive Landscapes, Sustaining Ecosystems.
-Geographical Exploration (decision-making)
Students who pursue GCSE geography are welcomed to build on pre-existing knowledge and exposure to geographical themes which run through both KS3 and KS4.
Key Stage 5 content
-
Human Interactions: Changing Spaces / Making Places, Migration, Human Rights
-
Physical Systems: Coastal Landscapes, Earth’s Life Support systems
-
Geographical Debates: Climate Change , Disease Dilemmas
-
Non-Examined Assessment (NEA): Student investigation (including fieldwork)
Extra Curricular
Students are invited to a series of lectures ran by organizations such as the Geographical Association and universities.
Exam Specifications
GCSE OCR B | J384 | GCSE Geography B (Geography for Enquiring Minds)
A Level OCR | H481| A Level Geography
