Year 7:

• Geography Tool Kit – An introduction to Geography with key skills covered including: locating countries, human and physical features, map skills, investigating our local area and Geographical Information Systems.
• Weather and Climate – why is the weather so varied in the UK compared to other places?
• Globalisation – is the world around us shrinking? How are we linked to other countries and cultures around the world?
• Coastal environments and management – how are our coastlines changing?  (including a fieldwork opportunity to Dover)

Year 8:

•   Cold environments and glaciation – how did these landscapes form and how do we use them?
• Climate change and sustainable living – what’s your role in our changing climate?
• Rivers landscapes – how are dramatic landscapes created by the power of rivers? are you at risk from flooding?
• Geology – how was our earth formed? How do rocks impact life?

Year 9:

• Tectonics – how can we improve communities’ resilience to plate tectonic hazards?
• Ecosystems – how are ecosystems changing? (including a field trip to Kew Gardens)
• Wider world – how is our world changing? What impact are humans having on our planet??

Exam Board: Edexcel B

An engaging and relevant study to today’s geographers –  a qualification that enables students to explore the world, the issues it faces and their own place in it, and to help prepare them to succeed in their chosen pathway.  The exam is framed by geographical enquiry questions to help pupils think and seek answers.

Component 1: Global Geographical Issues
Topic 1: Hazardous Earth
Topic 2: Development dynamics
Topic 3: Challenges of an urbanising world

Component 2: UK Geographical Issues
Topic 4: The UK’s evolving physical landscape (Coastal change and conflict and River processes and pressures)
Topic 5: The UK’s evolving human landscape – including a Case Study of London
Topic 6: Geographical investigations – including one physical fieldwork investigation and one human fieldwork investigation based on our residential field trip to Dorset

Component 3: People and Environment Issues – Making Geographical Decisions.
Section A: People and the biosphere
Section B: Forests under threat
Section C: Consuming energy resources
Section D: Making a geographical decision

Fieldwork: We undertake a residential field trip to Dorset in the Summer term of Year 10 to help pupils prepare for Component 2.

More information on the Specification can be found here

A Level

Exam Board: Edexcel

The new exam is engaging and relevant to today’s geographers – a qualification that enables pupils to engage critically with real world issues and places, apply their own geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to make sense of the world around them, and to help prepare them to succeed in their chosen pathway.

Paper 1 – Dynamic Landscapes ( 30% of the qualification)
Topic 1: Tectonic Processes and Hazards
Topic 2: Landscape Systems, Processes and Change – including  Glaciated Landscapes and Change
Topic 5: The Water Cycle and Water Insecurity
Topic 6: The Carbon Cycle and Energy Security

Paper 2 – Dynamic Places (30% of the qualification)
Topic 3: Globalisation
Topic 4: Shaping Places – including Regenerating Places
Topic 7: Superpowers
Topic 8: Global Development and Connections including Migration, Identity and Sovereignty

Paper 3 – Synoptic Geography (20% of the qualification)
The specification contains three synoptic themes: Players, Attitudes and Actions, Futures and uncertainties. The synoptic investigation will be based on a geographical issue within a place-based context that links to the three synoptic themes and is rooted in two or more of the compulsory content areas.

Paper 4 – Independent Investigation (20% of the qualification)
Following an independent piece of field work (choice from: Lake District, east London, North Downs) pupils will define a question or issue for investigation, relating to the compulsory or optional content. The topic may relate to any aspect of geography contained within the specification.  The student’s investigation will incorporate fieldwork data (collected individually or as part of a group) and own research and/or secondary data.  The fieldwork, which forms the focus and context of the individual investigation, may be either human, physical or integrated physical-human. The investigation report will evidence independent analysis and evaluation of data, presentation of data findings and extended writing