Geography
“Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future”
- Michael Palin.
“Geography prepares for the world of work. Geographers, with their skills of analysis, are highly employable!”
- Lord Alan Sugar.
Geography in Your World:
In geography our ambition is ALL students will have broad and rich Geographical knowledge of Portsmouth and their local area, the United Kingdom and a range of different countries worldwide. They will be able to assimilate information and use their gained cultural knowledge and experiences, to form and clearly articulate, balanced and well considered viewpoints around a range of global issues from climate change to food security. Students will acquire and confidently apply geographical skills (including mathematical, cartographic, investigative and problem solving skills) right from the beginning in year 7 and will have the opportunity to develop and refine these skills throughout Key Stage 3 and 4.
Our curriculum at Miltoncross goes far beyond what is taught in lessons. In key stage 3 pupils participate in fieldwork at Marwell Zoo, Hengistbury Head and the sustainability centre to apply the skills and knowledge from the classroom to the real world. KS4 geographers undertake urban and rural field trips to gain the confidence to undertake their own individual investigation entirely on a topic of their choice.
Our curriculum supports the improvement of reading by incorporating successful bestselling books into the curriculum. The year 8 Economy topic is based on the Almighty Dollar by David Dharshini where students follow the incredible journey of a single dollar. In the topic of development in Year 9 students read extracts, through guided reading, from Factfulness by Hans Rosling and explore misconceptions of the world and evaluate if the world is better than we really think.
Our Geography curriculum is structured through recurring themes to help students understand the threads that weave through the world around them while learning key knowledge and skills. This begins in Year 7 with oceans and ends in Year 9 with the same theme but exploring the global issues surrounding the world's oceans. Students only ever explore key themes after gaining their historical context, for example when studying population and migration in year 8, history has already taught the Industrial Revolution providing the foundation knowledge for why people move to cities. It enables them to see how their subjects all interrelate to create their world.
