Curriculum Aims               

We aim for every boy to:

• develop enquiring minds, encouraging students to question and discuss the key issues;
• have awareness of relevant events and issues that affect our planet;
• create an appreciation of environmental, economic, social and cultural aspects of places;
• become a global citizen, with awareness, skills and knowledge to understand the challenges of the 21st century;
• have a sense of community and place, on a variety of scales;
• think like a geographer; problem solve, research, communicate, analyse and discuss issues.

Curriculum Information

Qualifications

The Geography GCSE qualification (AQA GCSE Geography 8035) studies geography in a balanced framework of physical and human themes, investigating the links between them. Students will travel the world from their classroom, exploring case studies in the United Kingdom (UK), higher income countries (HICs), newly emerging economies (NEEs) and lower income countries (LICs). Geography is an extremely wide discipline which ranges from climate change and disappearing rainforests one week to poverty and deprivation in the next as well as global shifts in economic power and the increasingly important challenge of sustainable resource use.

Students who take GCSE Geography will gain a wide range of knowledge that is topical and relevant to the world around them. This specification also encourages students to understand their role in society, by considering different viewpoints, values and attitudes.

Studying Geography will enable students to acquire the skills of: understanding, reading and interpreting maps; interpreting photographs, including satellite images; drawing maps, diagrams, graphs and tables; collecting, analysing, presenting and interpreting raw data.

Summary of Assessment

Linear exams will consist of 3 differently weighted papers. Both Paper 1 and 2 are worth 35% of the overall grade, with Paper 3 being worth the remaining 30%.

Paper 1: Living with the physical environment

• Written exam: 1 hour 30 minutes
• 88 marks (including 3 marks for spelling, punctuation, grammar and specialist terminology (SPGST))
• 35% of GCSE

Paper 2: Challenges in the human environment

• Written exam: 1 hour 30 minutes
• 88 marks (including 3 marks for SPGST)
• 35% of GCSE

Paper 3: Geographical applications

• Written exam: 1 hour 15 minutes
• 76 marks (including 6 marks for SPGST)
• 30% of GCSE

Pre-release resources are made available from March in the year of the exam.

All students will sit the same exams.

Where can I find more details?

Additional Information

Geography Residential

Part of the qualification requires students to take up the opportunity to attend a 2-day residential fieldtrip to Liverpool and Wales in preparation for their Geographical Applications Paper. This residential will give students the experience Human and Physical Geography in the field. In Liverpool we will study the transformation of Liverpool’s city centre through urban regeneration. In Wales students will collect primary river data to explore the difference between courses of a river and how human intervention can impact natural processes.

Subject Guides for Parents and Carers

Geography during Years 7, 8 and 9

Geography during Years 10 and 11