Welcome to Geography

Welcome to the geography department. Our aim as a department is to ensure that our students have a rich geographical curriculum from key stage 3 to 5. We are enthusiastic about ensuring that students leave Ark Academy with a solid knowledge of the world and its intricacies. We are passionate about ensuring that our students get a range of experiences both inside and outside the classroom to develop their geographical thinking.

Geography is understanding the complex human and physical interactions occurring in our world today. The main concepts the department is focusing on are around place, space and environment. In addition, with a focus on increasing student’s exposure to fieldwork which is a key part of Geography curricula.

By studying Geography, pupils will connect and appreciate that geography is relevant to their lives, experiences and futures. Geography allows us to make sense of the planet and discover all we can about our home. We will inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people, which will remain with them for the rest of their lives. They will be accepting and tolerant of others as they will understand that the world is a global community. Our curriculum generates excitement, creativity and critical thinking about the world that will equip our pupils to make their own successful way in it.

All Year 1 subjects Next Year 1 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 2 subjects Next Year 2 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 3 subjects Next Year 3 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 4 subjects Next Year 4 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 5 subjects Next Year 5 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 6 subjects Next Year 6 Subject - Religious Education

Year 10 Objectives

This year continues to develop students geographical understanding from Key Stage 3. This year is focused on developing students' physical and human geography understanding and the content needed for paper 1 alongside one section required for paper 2. These units (The challenge of natural hazards; The living world; Physical landscapes in the UK) break down the global processes that take place in the physical world starting at the global with hazards and biomes to the local and regional when looking at physical landscapes. Students also study one section of the human geography content: Urban Issues and Challenges. This unit looks at how environments change over space and time as well as the ways that these places can be managed sustainably. We decided to study the three units which make up paper 1 as well as one unit from paper 2 to ensure that we align with the Ark Network centralised assessments. These topics are akin to the concepts taught in KS3, allowing students and teachers to make use of the existing foundations of knowledge to build further understanding of more complex ideas. In order to interleave the skills and knowledge of fieldwork, a decision has been made to separate the human and physical fieldwork that students complete as part of the course. In Year 10, students will complete their physical geography fieldwork during the summer term, travelling to Epping Forest to investigate ecosystems/ rivers/ flooding. We decided to complete the physical first as this directly links to the content studied throughout the year, thus helping to consolidate the learning in lessons (Clifford et al. 2016).

Another big focus of the KS4 curriculum is highlighting the future opportunities that studying Geography can provide. This is through case studies, sixth form open evening and a roll out of why students should study Geography at A-level.

Year 11 Objectives

This year focuses on students' human geography understanding with students focusing on the content required for paper 2. This decision was made as the content is more challenging and theoretical compared to the process focused needed for paper 1. In addition, these human processes take place on a world that is constantly changing. Therefore, it is important that students have a consideration of this as how the physical may have an impact on the human. Students also complete their second fieldwork experience during their urban issues and challenges to help embed the theoretical content.

At Year 11, there is a greater emphasis on examining the concepts at a local scale. For example, within urban issues and challenges students look at the concepts of urbanisation within Rio de Janeiro and London. Due to the spatial variations in urban challenges and opportunities across the world this year helps students see that these processes do not always happen perfectly and identically around the world. This concept is more challenging and therefore is studied later in the GCSE.

A final focus of Year 11 is the unpicking of the booklet released by AQA 12 weeks prior to their paper 3 assessment. This booklet is based on a theme from the specification. Students perform better when they have a strong knowledge foundation of this theme and therefore, we feel it is important to study at the end of the 2 years.

All Year 7 subjects Next Year 7 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 8 subjects Next Year 8 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 9 subjects Next Year 9 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 10 subjects Next Year 10 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 11 subjects Next Year 11 Subject - Religious Education

The Geography department at Ark Academy believe that A-level geography is essential to promoting an understanding of the wider world and the issues that people face, through a range of different perspectives. Our goal is to enthuse our students to continue learning into higher education and produce the future geographers.

Year 12 objective

Year 12 is an important year for students to experience a appreciate the demands of learning a subject to a-level standard. The objective of the year is to introduce students to the demands of the a-level and make them familiar with the quality and level with which we are expecting. From a content perspective the units focus on the foundational content students need to know. For example, water and carbon, hazards and changing places are all taught first as these appear in the other three units. In addition, at the start of year 13 students will need to design their own investigation so we have selected the units, in year 12, that students are most likely to base their project around. For example, as we are in London most students will do an urban study rather than a coastal one.

Year 13 objectives

Year 13 is important for building on the knowledge and skills students have obtained throughout their geographical career. The objective of the year is to complete their own independent piece of research which involves them designing, carrying out, analysing, concluding and evaluating their own work. This is a challenging piece of work which is one of the reasons why we decide to complete this in year 13 as students have the knowledge, skills and independence to be successful. Another objective of the year is to complete the remaining two units of global governance and coasts. We learn these in year 13 as both are conceptional challenging to understand.

All Year 12 subjects Next Year 12 Subject - Religious Education

All Year 13 subjects Next Year 13 Subject - Religious Education