KS3 intent.
Year 7
HT1: Local place and map skills
Local place (an introduction to Geography) – first topic introduces the topic of Geography, the local area, community, history and builds in map skills such as maps, atlas and ordnance survey skills whilst developing industry ready skills in basic GIS through accessing materials and technology. In year 7 all pupil’s inclusive of those with SEND and disadvantage will work collaboratively with others. This helps teachers to identify any possible gaps in students KS2 knowledge (eg grid references, place, location) and level out the gap between different levels of Geography taught in KS2/Primary schools as well as make Geography fun.
HT2: Weather and climate
Weather and climate (UK)- This topic is studied in the second half term (October to December) as this is generally when the UK experiences UK storms and therefore students have a greater interest as it happening in that moment. It gives the students an opportunity to expand their locational knowledge further than just the local area through shared experiences and collaborative learning which develops their communication and language through role play enabling all pupils with SEND or advantaged to engage in their learning. The topic introduces the differences between weather and climate, which will be used in the climate change topic in year 9. It also provides students with the opportunity to use/interpret graphs building on key geographical skills.
HT3: Hot deserts
Hot Deserts- This topic follows on from weather and climate as it provides a good contrast to the UK weather and allows students to build on knowledge of weather and climate. This topic introduces wider locational knowledge with a focus on the physical and human aspects of desert environment’s adaptations and ecosystems as well as the lives of the nomadic tribes who live in the Sahara Desert. Pupils are encouraged to become independent enquirers and through accessible materials and technologies develop a deeper understanding through developing their cultural capital. All pupils are including SEND and disadvantaged
HT4: Crazy cities and settlements
Crazy Cities & Settlements- This topic builds on the first topic of a local place, widening the understanding of population trends and settlements. This topic encourages students to make comparisons between places and locations alongside strengthening map skills (locating different places around the world) and using GIS to identify different settlement features on map. This topic further developing students’ ability to read and interpret sets of data. Pupils can develop their cultural capital further through studying the lives of migrants in India through observing their lives whilst living in the slums of Delhi. Pupils develop their writing for purpose as they create diary entries and evaluate living conditions.
HT5: Food and famine
Food and famine- This topic provides opportunity to reflect on local and global inequalities. Throughout the topic links are made between the human and physical factors surrounding food production (money and climate), linking back to HT2,3,4&5. Students are encouraged to formulate ideas and arguments about the most important factor in determining famine across the globe (money, technology or climate). This is the first topic to introduce global citizenship.
HT6: Fieldwork
Does Rhyddings schools ground have a microclimate?
Students will undertake a local fieldwork study to develop their understanding of the geographical enquiry process through an investigation in the local area
Year 8
HT1: Polar environments
This topic is a contrasting ecosystem to the hot deserts studied in year 7 and builds on skills gained previously (climate graphs). It is an area of the world not covered in year 7 and builds on the previous learning in the weather and climate. It is a good gateway topic for international conflict and climate change. This topic provides students with an opportunity to develop oracy skills via a debate about joining/creating a treaty and its importance.
HT2: Populations
This topic has direct links to the issues covered in the past topic (polar environments) and that covered in year 7 (crazy cities and settlements) discovering how population rise can have a direct impact across the world in even the most remote regions. This topic introduces demographic models, underpinning the human geography covered at GCSE.
HT3: Endless energy
This topic encourages wider reading and studying in the news and encourages students to learn outside the classroom, building on the global awareness from previous topics. It is a topic which really encourages the students to consider how their actions now can impact their future selves. It is a topic which links back to polar environments, populations and leads onto climate change in year 9.
HT4: Coasts
This topic integrates both physical and human geography aspects, for example the natural landforms and human impacts at the coastline. The topic also has direct links to climate change, populations and settlements- allowing the students to interconnect the knowledge gained in these topics and sets the foundation knowledge for the study of UK geology.
HT5: Africa is not a country
Africa is not a country “Africa is Not a Country” explores the diverse geography, cultures, economies, and political landscapes across the African continent, emphasising the complexity and uniqueness of its 54 independent countries. The topic has links to populations, settlements, and looks at climate change in different African countries.
HT6: Fieldwork
Fieldtrip-What is the environmental quality of Rhyddings school grounds?
Students will undertake a local fieldwork study on the school grounds to develop their understanding of the geographical enquiry process through an investigation on the school ground.
Year 9
HT1: Climate change
This topic develops students understanding of the biggest issue currently faced in the world. It allows students to understand the concept of climate change before and after human development, evaluating the evidence for climate change and the current and future impacts of climate change on the UK and the wider world.
HT2: Environmental mysteries or human errors
This topic again encourages the students to make decisions and understand the key links between human and physical geography and allows them to study a range of places across the world. This topic pulls in aspects of previous topics such as populations, weather and climate and encourages students to make a decision.
HT3: Tectonics
This topic allows pupils to build an understanding the earth beneath our feet and how natural process shape our land and impact the people. This topic focuses on Volcanic eruptions, building on the knowledge gained in year 8 on earthquakes. Pupils will study a range of case studies to develop an awareness of how different countries respond to natural disasters and the factors that impact this.
HT4: Middle East
This topic further builds on the topic of hot deserts in year 7. This topic builds on the student’s knowledge of hot desert climates and challenges. It also builds on the topic of endless energy and encourages students to make links between the Middle East and the UK, developing an understanding of the importance of the Middle East alongside bringing in Geography in the news when studying the conflicts and recent tectonics hazards.
HT5: Rocks & Rivers
This topic builds on the knowledge gained in the coast’s topic as many aspects of coasts cross over to rivers. This topic has an emphasis on the link between human and physical geography and understanding the impacts of human actions on the physical environmental. This topic encourages to make a decision and justify this decision. This is another topic which gives students the fundamental knowledge for GCSE.
HT6: Fieldwork
What is the environmental quality of the Rhyddings school ground?
Students will undertake a local fieldwork study to develop their understanding of the geographical enquiry process through an investigation in the local school grounds. This fieldwork builds on the fieldwork in year 8, however this time students will independently choose the locations within the grounds to investigate and create their own environmental quality survey scale and categories.
KS4 intent
Year 10
We begin the GCSE course with paper 1 and teach paper 1 throughout year 10 in the order of the exam paper. We teach each paper as an entirety so that pupils do not confuse the topics, case studies or named examples across papers, as there are many links and crossovers between the topics. In year 10 students will carry out the physical aspect of their fieldwork in Cleveleys. We end year 10 with the resource management topic of paper 2 and work backwards through paper 2 in year 11. In year 11 pupils carry out the second fieldwork enquiry and then consolidate their findings to come to conclusions.
Living with the physical environment
HT1&2: The challenge of natural hazards
This topic begins with tectonic hazards which builds on the year 8 and 9 topic of tectonic hazards building on the knowledge gained in KS3 and adding more depth to the pupils understanding of how physical process shape the earth. In the second aspect of this topic, pupils study atmospheric hazards which builds on from the weather and climate topic in year 7. In this aspect of the topic pupils widen their knowledge of weather hazards further to include tropical storms, alongside studying UK weather events. Finally, the last aspect of this topic builds on the knowledge and understanding of climate change gained in year 9. This is the first topic which invites pupils to develop further their understanding of how wealth can impact a countries ability to respond and deal with situations which is vital procedural knowledge needed across the course. This developed understanding about wealth is key across many topics such as urban issues and resource management.
Named examples
LIC earthquake: Nepal 2015
HIC earthquake: New Zealand, Christchruch, 2011
Tropical storm: Typhoon Haiyan
UK Storm: Storm Desmond
HT3&4: The Living World
This topic introduces ecosystems and their vital components, widening pupils locational knowledge as they study the distribution of the world’s major ecosystems. Pupils study a tropical rainforest, understanding the interdependence between the natural components and how the human world has been reliant of these components, evaluating the cost and benefits of this reliance and how this can be managed. In this topic students build knowledge about Brazil’s economic status, this knowledge is revisited in the urban issues topic, so it is vital pupils have a sound understanding of the country. The second aspect of this topic is hot deserts, building on knowledge gained in year 7 (hot deserts) and year 9 (environmental mysteries/human error- desertification), encouraging students to deepen their understanding of the extreme challenges and economic opportunities faced across the world’s largest hot desert, again evaluating the costs and benefits of this environment. Within this topic students also build on their procedural knowledge of climate graphs, a key component of this topic.
Case studies
Tropical rainforest: The Amazon
Hot desert: The Sahara
Areas on the fringe of hot deserts: The Sahel
HT4&5: Physical landscapes in the UK
This topic builds on knowledge gained in year 8 (coasts) and year 9 (rocks and rivers), developing pupils understanding of how physical processes continually shape out landscape. This is another topic in which pupils evaluate the costs and benefits of human intervention on our natural world and further develop their locational knowledge of the UK. This topic also builds the foundations of the physical aspect of the fieldwork.
Named examples
Coasts: The Holderness coast
Rivers: Banbury
Challenges in the human environment
HT6: Resource management
In the last half term of year 10, pupils begin to study paper 2, beginning with the challenge of resource management. Pupils further wider their locational knowledge of the world, studying which countries have access to basic resources such as food, energy and water, applying their understanding of how wealth can impact a countries ability to access these resources. The second aspect of this topic focuses on the demand for water resources globally, comparing how different countries deal with an abundance and lack of water.
Named examples
Large scale water transfer scheme: Lesotho
Local scheme to increase water: Wakel river basin
HT6: Fieldwork
During this half term students will complete their first geographical enquiry. This will take place at Cleveleys beach. Pupils will be investigating to what extant to the groynes prevent longshore drift. This fieldwork enquiry will take place over one day and allows pupils to build on the knowledge gained in the costs topics and apply that to their geographical enquiry.
Year 11
HT1&2: Changing economic world
This topic further builds on pupils understanding of wealth and different countries development. Pupils are encouraged to compare countries development over time, making comparisons between their levels and reasons for development or lack of, understanding how development gaps can be closed. This topic also deepens pupils understanding of the UKs development.
Named example
Tourism: Jamacia
Modern industrial development: Torr Quarry
Case studies
LIC: Nigeria
HT1: Fieldwork
In year 11, pupils carry out their second geographical enquiry at Blackpool and Cleveleys, investigating which area offers more tourist attractions.
HT2&3: Urban issues
This topic develops students understanding of the global pattern of urban change, building on the topic in year 7 of crazy cities and settlements. Again, this topic encourages students to use their knowledge about how wealth can impact development and widen their locational knowledge further. This topic allows students to use previously learnt knowledge about Brazil and apply this to the case study and further builds on the pupils UK knowledge.
Case studies
NEE: Brazil, Rio
UK city: Manchester
Examples
Urban planning for the urban poor: The Favela Barrio Project
UK urban regeneration: New Islington
HT4&5: Issue evaluation
12 weeks before the exam the pre-release issue evaluation will be released. This will be based on a topic which students have already studied and will consist of a decision-making question.
HT4&5: Revision
Revision will be delivered based on command words booklets. All questions of the same command word from previous exams and examples papers released from AQA have been collated and put into one booklet. Each booklet will form a lesson(s). Key information about the command word, how to answer each type of command word, the A0s tested and the key components/stages of a ‘perfect’ answer. Model answers will be shared with pupils (I do, we do, you do), broken down and discussed, following that pupils will attempt exam questions directed by the teacher. This process allows for all command words to be covered alongside topics being revised as they answer the exam questions. Students will use their exercise books to refer to key knowledge for each question.
