KS3 Geography

Geography  

Description

Geography is a highly relevant and evolving subject that aims to inspire and enthuse all learners about the fascinating world that we live in. The curriculum is informed by the key geographical skills from the National Curriculum and longer term the GCSE skills required for Edexcel Geography A.  

Starting in Year 7 the course has been designed to guide students in their understanding about the complex, yet complementary relationship between physical and human geography. It equips students with the conceptual knowledge of globally significant places and environments. It deepens their understanding and application of the action of processes and their role in shaping landscapes over space and time. It places significance on the importance of questioning from both the teacher and the students, to invite curiosity and engagement. Built into lessons are opportunities for the students to collect analyse and communicate with a range of qualitative and quantitative stimulus gathered through primary and secondary data. Geography is an interconnected and exciting subject and the Key Stage 3 content allows for the students to discover this for themselves.

Students will experience a range of assessments and gain an appreciation about the role and importance of formative assessments in securing positive outcomes in summative assessments.  Each unit of work will have a summative assessment marked in accordance the new assessment criteria, but within each unit of work students will peer and self assess as well as act on teacher feedback.  The department’s philosophy is mark, reflect, student action and then repeat.  We aim to help our students become reflective learners.

What books will be studied?

There are no set texts for geography but we do encourage students to read geographical magazines such as The National Geographic and Geography Review both can obtained from the school library or geography department.  In addition students can access online newspaper articles from the broadsheet newspapers focusing on environment and society.

Is there anything else I need to know?

Geography is a subject that changes all the time and we encourage our students to keep a scrapbook of global and local geography examples they discover through media, social media and/ or experiences. Fieldwork is an important component of geography and trips will be planned to extend and solidify the abstract into reality.

How does this subject prepare students for GCSE option choice in year 9?

By the end of Key Stage 3 students should be competent in a range of geographical skills that includes, cartographic, numerical, graphical and atlas all of which are inherent in the new GCSE.  Having an appreciation that geography is not just about places but more about the how and why they evolve, change and influence our lives will support the conceptual, people environment and processes aspects of the GCSE course.

What extra-curricular opportunities are available for this subject and what can I do at home to challenge myself?

We encourage visits to museums. We also like our geographers to discover more about the place they live, to discover more about its locale, using mobile phone pictures that can be downloaded to their Google drive.

Who should I contact for extra information?

Course contact: Mrs Buckingham gemma.buckingham@biddenham.beds.sch.uk