Geography

What is our overarching curriculum intent and what do we intend students leave Bridgemary School with?

We intend that our curriculum supports our Trust ambition of ‘achieving more together’.  We do this by using a spiral curriculum that allows students to develop a broad understanding of the subject, whilst at the same time developing their knowledge of specific examples to support their subject knowledge. Students will be able to compare the physical geography of different countries and continents, and explain how that has affected the human geography of those countries. Students will look at key themes within the subject, looking at climate change, ecosystems, resources management and development amongst many others. The students will develop this knowledge through case studies of areas around the world. This is important as it will give the students the opportunity to study a broad and balanced curriculum. The intention of our curriculum is to instil in students the skills and passion for the subject which will in turn create lifelong learners, who are able to become active participants in the modern world.  

What is the structural intent of the subject curriculum, & how is it sequenced so that students know and remember more?

The curriculum across all subjects is carefully sequenced so that prior core declarative and procedural knowledge is built upon, with continual opportunities for core knowledge to be interleaved throughout both key stages so that students know more, remember more and can apply that knowledge in a range of contexts.  Facilitating knowledge adds important local, national, and global context to core knowledge, and our curriculum intends to provide a richness and diversity that enables our students to experience learning in real life contexts.

How do any school values and focuses influence or feed through the curriculum?

The school curriculum is built on 4 aims to ensure our students receive and are able to access it fully, those being:

• Reading and comprehension that aims to ensure all students leave with a reading age at least equivalent to their chronological age
• Our school ethos of Be Kind, Work Hard, Be the Best Version of Yourself
• A deepening understanding of core and facilitating knowledge that enables students to know and remember more
• A wide appreciation of the world that we live in, and the celebration of the diversity this brings

In Geography we support these aims by providing students with an opportunity to explore and engage with a wide ranging and varied curriculum. Students will engage with data and information in many forms, which will help them develop the skills that all geographers need. By understanding the different geographies of continents, and the impact this has had on both the culture and development of those countries, students will have the knowledge and skills required to become active citizens. They will use a mixture of declarative and facilitating knowledge, which, through research driven department pedagogy will be revisited regularly in order to help students know and remember more. Students will be able to use procedural knowledge to develop the geographical skills, which in turn will be built on as they move through their learning journey.

What is our intent to assess how well students access the curriculum and how the school intends to adapt the curriculum to close gaps in knowledge?

To ensure any gaps in prior or new knowledge are quickly identified, we check progress frequently through a range of assessment opportunities, from lesson-by-lesson declarative knowledge tests, end of topic tests that assess knowledge retention and application, to more cumulative common assessments that assess students’ ability to remember and apply knowledge in a range of contexts.  The information from these assessments are used to adapt the curriculums intending to quickly close gaps in knowledge and keep students on track to achieve at our ambitious academic flight paths.

The curriculum we intend to deliver to students at each Key Stage:

At KS3 students will begin their learning journey by developing the key skills they will need in order to excel throughout their geography learning journey. Once students have covered these skills, they will revisit and extend them throughout the rest of the time in the subject, giving them the opportunity to master the skills as they progress. Students will then learn about weather + climate and ecosystems. This helps students to understand the world they live in today and some of the most important issues being faced. Learning about ecosystems will help students to understand how human processes change landscapes, further extending their knowledge. Moving on from that students will study a case study of Africa, looking at both the physical and human geography of the continent.

Moving into year 8 students will look at the economy and economic factors in different sectors.  This leads them into population + urbanisation, where they will discuss key issues such as population growth and demand on services within cities and the impact this has on key issues like sustainability and development. Students will then cover rivers to the sea where we look at the importance of fluvial and coastal landforms. Natural resources is the focus next as we look at the supply and demand of key resources across the globe. From there students finish the year with a case study of Asia, considering the human and physical geography of the region.

Moving into year 9 students will begin by looking at Climate Change and the future of the Earth and then development, before moving onto natural hazards. Students will consider a case study of the Middle East. Students will finish the year by conducting fieldwork, which will allow them to put their knowledge into context and apply their procedural knowledge to the world around them.    

At KS4 students will build on the knowledge they have developed in the first three years of their learning journey. They will continue to extend their declarative knowledge, whilst improving the geographical skills by enhancing their procedural knowledge. Students will begin by looking at the ecosystems and management of them which includes local and global examples.  Next students will shift to a human geography focus to interleave the topics.  We will study Changing Cities and compare developed and developing cities and the issues they face.  This brings us to more physical geography and the introduction of Rivers and Coasts, building on our KS3 foundation.  After Changing Cities and Coasts students are ready to undertake fieldwork at the end of Year 10.

The fieldwork sees them collect data to prove a hypothesis at the coast (Hengistbury Head) and in a city (Southampton).

Year 11 sees students focus on Global Development and a major case study of India’s recent rise to a global superpower.  Weather + Hazards and Resource Management are taught in Year 11, leaving our UK challenges topic to last, as the knowledge learnt across previous topics underpins this, such as housing, transport and sustainability issues.  

How does the co-curriculum enhance the curriculum?

Students are given many opportunities to read around the subject as well as being given recommendations for subject specific documentaries which they could watch to enhance their subject knowledge. Students will be using the skills they develop in their mathematics lessons to help them understand the data which they will be engaging with in their geography lessons which creates a strong cross-curricular link. Students will also be given the opportunity to complete fieldwork, giving them the opportunity to utilise their geographical skills in a practical setting.