What will STUDENTS need to be successful in this course? 

Students following the GCSE Geography course will engage in a variety of learning styles and approaches, including: written communication in the form of short answers to questions and some more detailed writing; research, both collaboratively with other students and individually, using source materials and the internet; the use of ‘thinking’ skills, including individual and collaborative recall exercises; collecting, processing and displaying data as an outcome of departmental fieldwork; critically analysing and interpreting presented data; group and whole class discussions; extracting important, salient and relevant information from audio-visual presentations; outdoor learning through fieldwork, where a minimum of two fieldwork trips will take place during the course.

support for students

This course is suitable for students of all ability levels. Students with aspirations of Grade 7 and above can expect challenges and should always aim to complete ‘stretch yourself’ extension tasks and this will often be thinking in more detail about the causes, impacts and responses associated with key geographical events and the role decision makers have in shaping the world in which we live. Students will be expected to think more deeply about the more complex interactions between people and the physical environment. We will be expecting the level of writing to be sophisticated and students will be able to write extended responses that show logical chains of reason, using key vocabulary with key geographical ideas explained and real case study information cited to illustrate the points they make. Their place knowledge should be good and we will encourage them to further develop this and more advanced graphical and cartographical skills.

Students aiming for Grade 3 and higher will be well supported with sentence structures to help craft written responses and core activities as part of a differentiated approach. We have a wide range of support materials to help revise key topics and students will spend part of Year 9 ‘cementing’ and developing key geographical skills and vocabulary with regular low stakes definition and factual recall tests and plenty of opportunities to develop their extended writing skills over time. We help support students with their connectives to structure sentences when attempting answers to questions that require longer answers. Use of iPads feature highly and tasks and support materials can be accessed through Google Classroom, often days or weeks in advance of the upcoming lessons. 

As students approach their examinations we offer both targeted and general revision sessions after school and at key times during tutor periods.

Content & Assessment                                       SAMPLE ASSESSMENT

STUDENT WORK SAMPLES