Cultural Capital
Within Geography, we encourage students to strive to become global citizens and to ‘speak, think and write like a Geographer’. We want students to not only explore a diverse range of concepts which intertwine physical and human Geography, but to develop their resilience to explore different sources of information to formulate their own opinion.
Our rich curriculum aims to support students to develop a wider skill set which can transfer into the world of work. We aim to expose students to future careers within our units of study which provides context into how Geography is relevant to them; now and in the future.
We focus upon their strands of communication and how they can present and defend their opinion on global issues and encourage students to reflect upon their current actions. We aim to develop students' cultural awareness, exploring different continents and local perspectives on issues throughout our 5 year curriculum.
Curriculum Journey
This is a map to show the learning journey in Geography from year 6 through to further education and possible careers.
Geography Curriculum 2022-2023.pdfOverview of the learning journey in Geography
Year 7
Students begin to look at the qualities required to be a good geographer. We look at the topic ‘where in the world am I’, which aims to develop the sense of place, locational knowledge and the concept of interconnectedness. This topic aims to build students' confidence from KS2 and to aid their connections with their prior knowledge. We continue to develop their critical thinking skills as we explore population growth and the impacts it can have around the globe.
In the spring term, we investigate our UK coastal landscapes answering the key question ‘What happens where land meets the sea? We explore the coastal processes that form key features such as headlands and bays, caves, arches, spits and bars. We look at these processes and the impact on coastal locations such as Happisburgh. We shift our focus to what life is like on the African continent. Our key question ‘What is the dangers of telling a single story in Africa?’ allows students to challenge any prior misconceptions and how we can overcome these as we look at the continent exploring its biomes and economic status.
Our final term explores the physical Geography in the UK, focusing on the physical systems stemming from both ice and water. We explore glacial and fluvial processes and their impact on the Lake District’s landscape. We end year 7 looking at weather and climate and complete fieldwork to explore the key question; where is the best location to set up a picnic bench at the Colne Community School?
Year 8
Students build upon the key concepts developed in year 7, first looking at the physical and human characteristics of Brazil, focusing on the Amazon Rainforest and Rio de Janeiro. We continue this term looking at student’s perceptions of a country’s development in our topic ‘uneven world’, with a key focus upon inequality and the causes and consequences of uneven development.
Our spring term is focused upon two contrasting places within the world. We look at the big question of ‘who owns the Arctic?’ focusing upon the Arctic’s physical characteristics and development of this unique landscape. We compare and contrast the region of the Middle East. We question the global importance of the Middle East, linking back to economic growth, its association to globalisation and resource management.
We then continue looking the continent of Asia and what life is like in differing parts of the continent. We look at the physical Geography and how is can influence settlements, globalisation and differing levels of development. Our final topic takes us back to the UK, where the physical theme of coastal processes helps us to make decisions into how we protect the UK coastline.
Year 9
Students begin year 9 evaluating the global issue of sustainability. We will cover key elements linking to the Sustainable Development Goals; specifically mitigating climate change, energy development and designing sustainable cities. We move on to our topic of Asia where we look at what life is like in differing parts of the continent. We compare its physical Geography and how it can influence settlements, globalisation and differing levels of development.
In the spring we move on to discuss differing solutions to reduce the development gap between low-income and high-income countries. We look at case studies to support differing strategies such as fair trade, debt relief and tourism whilst evaluating which are more successful in the long term. This unit is designed to support decision making; a key skill in preparation for student’s GCSE courses. We continue the sprint term looking at crime and conflict which gets students questioning their sense of place and investigating their local area’s current crime rates.
Our summer term looks at the theme of natural hazards. We explore the key physical systems that cause the formation of volcanoes and earthquakes; along with their impact upon low and high income countries. We compare key earthquakes occurring in both Nepal and New Zealand and how to reduce the impacts through monitoring, prediction and planning. We continue to look at tropical storms globally and extreme weather in the UK.
Our aim, whether students finish Geography in Year 9 or continue to GCSE is to develop confident global citizen who is passionate about the world around them.
Year 10
Students will build upon their Key Stage 3 knowledge as they begin their AQA GCSE Geography course. Our focus for year 10 is our first paper ‘Living with the physical environment’ which begins the topic of living world. We explore food chains, interdependence and biomes before focusing on two key biomes; the tropical rainforest and hot deserts. Our case studies explore the Malaysian Rainforest and the Thar Desert, which develops student’s knowledge on adaptations along with methods to evaluate sustainable options to manage these fragile environments.
We continue to learn about natural hazards, where students will learn the mechanics behind plate boundaries and their links to tectonic hazards. We compare similar magnitude earthquakes and the differing impacts upon low income countries and high income countries. This topic then looks at extreme weather events such as tropical storms and heat waves, reducing their effects and the effects of climate change. Finally, we prepare for section C of paper 1; fluvial and coastal processes and their impacts upon the landscape. We visit Walton on the Naze as part of our compulsory fieldwork in Paper 3, along with Essex University to look as sustainability of their campus.
Year 11
We explore Paper 2’s key topics linking to human Geography. We recap urban issues and continue to investigate economic development of countries, focusing on their wealth and how this can impact quality of life in contrasting locations. We finalise our topics with resource management, which highlights the inequalities of our global resources and how we can sustainably manage them. We finalised with the topic of rivers (paper 1) whilst interleaving revision strategies to assist student’s retrieval. We recall our Year 10 knowledge on tectonics, weather, urbanisation, the economy and UK landscapes whilst exploring key case studies linking to AQA GCSE. Our final focus after Easter is to looks at Paper 3’s pre-release material (released 12 weeks before Paper 3) and geographical skills which are embedded across all three papers.
Knowledge Organisers for GCSE
These are the knowledge organiser used by students in lessons to support the learning and retrieval of key information.