Curriculum Intent

The Geography department, as stakeholders, has had input into the design of the curriculum and share its vision and rationale.

Geography lessons at The Archbishop’s School aim to provide an interesting and relevant course of study that will both prepare students for further study at GCSE and provide a broad and balanced geographical education that gives them the appropriate knowledge and skills for life beyond the classroom. We aim to provide varied and stimulating lessons that allow all students to achieve, providing a good grounding of basic geographical understanding for all, while stretching and challenging our most able students as well.

In Geography lessons, students are encouraged to develop their use of geographical vocabulary as their numerical and graphical skills.  An exciting programme of fieldwork is also being developed.  This is already strong at GCSE and A’ Level and is being developed for other year groups.

Opportunities are found to link content and skills with students own experiences, which are then expanded on. Prior knowledge is revisited through recap and starter activities and opportunities are found to make links between different topics so that overall understanding of the world is enhanced. Links are also frequently made between physical and human Geography in case study examples of places.

Students are encouraged and supported in their revision with optional after-school revision sessions and in regular end of topic tests. Previous lessons & knowledge are also recapped on in class, where this is relevant. Students are helped to develop memorable visual aids & revision skills at all levels. KS3 end of topic tests is usually preceded by a revision/ recap lesson.  Mnemonics at KS4 eg. SPEED (Social, Political, Economic, Environmental, Demographic…) are also used.

How is cultural capital developed in each SOW?

• Cultural capital is about preparing children with the knowledge and skills for what comes next. The curriculum has been designed both to prepare students for taking Geography further at GCSE, so, for example, rivers and coasts are studied, which lead on to further study at GCSE, but the curriculum is also trying to provide a good general geographical education, so for example, in a topic on Kenya, we are looking to dispel some of the misconceptions about Africa in general, by focussing on the number of countries and the enormous variety of climate, landscapes and levels of wealth

How is assessment used to identify and fill gaps?

• Marking of books & assessment of classwork enables teachers to identify and, individually or as a class, address gaps in knowledge and understanding.  End of topic tests further this and allow teachers to give a grade that can be compared with their target grades and further support or challenge added.