Curriculum

• Geography prepares young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding to make sense of their world and to face the challenges that will shape our societies and environments at the local, national and global scales.’ Dr Rita Gardner

In geography we aim to deliver a curriculum that is broad and balanced in order for students to have the knowledge they need to succeed in life.

Though their study of geography we want:

• To provide students with the knowledge and skills to understand both the human and physical processes which shape and impact their daily lives at a range of scales (local and global)
• To develop students enquiry skills by deepening their reasoning, data interpretation, justification of viewpoints and undertaking of fieldwork.
• To build an environment where pupils become active learners who have the confidence to question and debate their view with other members of the school community.
• To ensure that when students leave our care they are global citizens who have a deep understanding of how their actions can have a lasting effects on both the natural and human world.
• To prepare students for the next stage in their education by creating resilient learners who can reflect on their own successes and failures.

Our geography curriculum will:

• Place the concept of interleaving at its core with the eight key themes of landscapes, weather and climate, ecosystems, hazards, climate change, natural resources, population, development and sustainability (which all feature heavily at GCSE). By removing conventional topics and replacing them with enquiry questions students can build on prior learning at multiple points throughout the course, deepening students understanding whilst not simply just bring down knowledge.
• Be challenging focusing on the concepts at KS3 that students traditionally find the most difficult.
• Focus on deepening students understanding of their local environment. This allows students to have comparative context when studying new places. As students generally are not widely travelled at Moorside, their locality, at a range of scales (Stoke, Staffordshire and UK), can act as a levelling base for all students.
• Provide students with a more comprehensive understanding of place by not only focusing on the key geographical events but the context behind them, thinking synoptically about both human and physical geography.
• Constantly evolve with staff to teach the most contemporary geography in terms of academic theory and place specific examples. As a result CPD will be a continual focus for all staff within the department.