Balshaw’s Church of England High School

Geography

Geography Department Staff

For more information about the Subject curriculum, please contact: Mrs S Thomasson the Curriculum Leader

Mrs S Thomasson - Curriculum Leader
Miss H Blenkinship
Miss E Brown

Michael Palin quotes “Geography students hold the key to the world’s problems“ Geography at Balshaw’s gives students the opportunity to explore the world in which they live, encouraging them to develop a sense of citizenship within a local, national and global context. Students are encouraged to develop key skills such as enquiry, problem solving, decision making, synthesising ideas, identifying issues and communicating with others. This is done through investigation of the following key concepts:

Place	Space	Scale
Interdependence	Physical and Human Processing	Environmental Interaction
Sustainable development	Cultural Understanding and Diversity

Key Stage 3 Geography

In Years 7 & 8 students study Geography for 3 hours over the two week timetable. Year 9 students study Geography for 2 hours per week. All Geography teachers follow a consistent programme of study. Students study a range of human and physical topics, explore case study locations from around the world and investigate environmental, social, economic, and political issues affecting today’s society.

Year 7

Year 8

Year 9

Map work— physical & human features

Geo-skills

Coasts

Rivers
(including enquiry skills)

The UK—a sense of place

Population & Urbanisation

Development

World Climate & Ecosystems

Tectonics

Issue Evaluation
Energy & development

The World of Food

Glaciation
(including climate change)

Africa, a continent of contrasts

A Tourist’s World

The Geography of Crime
(including enquiry skills)

Living World

Geographical enquiry skills

Issue Evaluation—Tropical Rainforest

Key Stage 4 Geography

Geography is a popular option at GCSE and all groups are taught by specialists. Students follow the AQA specification. This GCSE Geography course enables students to appreciate the complexity of our world and the diversity of its environments, economies and cultures. The course builds on a number of topics studied at Key Stage 3 including tectonics, coasts, urban issues and challenges and development as well as introducing new concepts.

The Geography course is linear, students will sit all their exams at the end of the course, there is no coursework. There are three exams:

Paper	1: Living with the physical environment	2: Challenges in the human environment	3: Geographical application
Topics	The challenge of natural hazards. (tectonic hazards, weather hazards, climate change) Physical landscapes in the UK. (coasts & glaciation) The living world. (ecosystems, tropical rainforests, hot environments)	Urban issues and challenges The changing economic world The challenge of resource management. (resource management & food)	Issue evaluation Fieldwork Geographical skills
How it is assessed	Written exam: 1 hour 30 minutes 35% of GCSE	Written exam: 1 hour 30 minutes 35% of GCSE	Written exam: 1 hour 15 minutes 30% of GCSE

GCSE programme of study:

Year 9	Year 10	Year 11
The living world Issues evaluation / Geographical skills	The challenge of natural hazards The changing economic world Physical landscapes in the UK (coasts & glaciation) Fieldwork	Urban issues and challenges The challenge of resource management (resource management & food) Issues evaluation

Note: Year 11 September 2017 will complete the living world unit during the Autumn term of Year 11 as they only started the course in Year 10.

Geographical skills are taught across all topics and a geographical skills workbook is completed as a transition task during the summer between year 10 & 11. All students receive a booklet of key questions and answers as they study each unit of work, they are encouraged to use these at home and with friends to regularly check their subject knowledge.