Geography

The Geography Curriculum

Southgate School’s Geography department wants students to develop an awe and wonder of the world around them. By exploring human and physical geography, students will develop a knowledge and appreciation of their place in the global sphere. This will equip them with the knowledge and skills to be successful global citizens.

At Key Stage 3, students will understand how the world works and how it can and will change in the future. They will learn about places that are outside of their own experience and develop their understanding of the world’s diversity of environments, peoples, cultures and economies. This develops thinking skills as well as cartographic and statistical skills.

By the end of KS3, students have developed the skill sets to make the transition to the requirements of the GCSE.

At KS4, geography students study both human and physical geography in class and through fieldwork. The skills that students have developed progressively from Year 7 are revisited and applied in more challenging geographical contexts at GCSE. Study areas include for example economic geography, physical landscapes in the UK and local and global ecosystems.

During ALevel students are further challenged within Human and Physical Geography to expand their depth of Geographical knowledge, making synoptic links between different aspects of the course and keeping up to date with current case studies and examples on, for example, the water and carbon cycles and global systems and global governance. In addition each student produces a piece of  independent research, developing knowledge and skills for the workplace and further academic study. By the end of KS5, students leave with a qualification that spans both the humanities and the sciences.