Geography

The Geography Department fully supports the vision and ethos of the Grange School of equality, equity, and solidarity. The vision of the department, as a socially, economically, and culturally diverse school at the heart of Aylesbury, is to inspire pupils to ask questions about the world they live in and their role within it. Places are studied, at a variety of different scales, by looking at the human and physical processes that shape and change them. Geographical skills are developed to enhance and deepen geographical thinking, enabling learners to analyse and form conclusions about a range of issues and processes that affect people, the environment, and the natural landscape. Students should develop their Geography learning beyond the classroom, to help them make sense of the world they live in and to support the geographical knowledge, understanding and skills they have acquired in the classroom, so they can think like a geographer.

Key Stage 3 

We explore this through enquiry questions from year 7-9, so the students can see how they fit into the world and how the world shapes them. They develop a series of skills that enables them to answer these enquiry questions. We begin in year 7 with the essential geographical skills and we implement these by looking at our world on a local, national, and international scale constantly referring to key skills such as map, statistical & analytical skills through our enquiry questions. For year 8 we explore the physical world of the UK by looking at the river landscapes that shape us locally, then as we are an island we move on to coastal landscapes on a national scale. This provides us with an understanding of how my landscape has been formed. Then in year 9 we look at the dangers we face in the world, both physically and human, how our climate is changing and what natural hazards other countries face and whether our local area has ever experienced these hazards. In year 9, we build on our skills learnt in previous years but begin to compare our experiences to others and the reasons why we respond in different ways as a developed country as opposed to a developing nation.

Key Stage 4

At Key Stage 4, students further develop their geographical thinking and their geographical skills they began to cultivate at Key Stage 3 to deepen their geographical understanding of key concepts (place, scale, space, interdependence, human and physical processes, and sustainability) with a higher level of independence. The AQA specification provides students in Year 10 and 11 with the opportunity to regularly question how physical processes (Paper 1) and human processes (social, economic, and political factors) (Paper 2) play a key role in shaping and changing places at a variety of scales. In both Year 10 and 11, students gain an awareness and build confidence in applying their knowledge to GCSE questions through regular practice questions and discussion; use of modelled answers; and application of this knowledge to a new context. Paper 3 allows pupils to ‘think like geographers’ and to investigate the world around them. As part of this, students are required to complete both a human and physical fieldwork investigation. They are then asked to demonstrate an understanding of their findings and methods, whilst also showing an understanding of fieldwork processes in general. Students are encouraged to develop their synopticity through the ‘issue evaluation’ part of Paper 3, which provides pupils with a variety of unseen sources which they will have to interpret and to which they apply.

Key Stage 5

At KS5, students continue to increasingly develop their independence in preparation for further education and later life. There is an emphasis on students ‘thinking like a geographer’ as they mature in their geographical thinking and use of geographical skills that they have fostered since Key Stage 3. They continue to extend their geographical understanding of the key concepts (place, scale, space, interdependence, human and physical processes, and sustainability) underpinning geography, whilst growing in confidence making synoptic links between these. The Edexcel curriculum allows pupils to continue to investigate the human and physical processes shaping a variety of places on a variety of scales in greater depth. The independence of students is developed through the expectation to ‘read around’ the subject; research a variety of real-life examples independently; and look for opportunities to apply their deepened knowledge to their classroom learning. This will enhance students’ ability to discuss, critically evaluate and take into further consideration the social, moral, cultural, and ethical issues associated with global and individual actions over space and time. This independence also facilitates the opportunity for students to put their learning into practice and complete an individual fieldwork investigation through a Non-Examined Assessment (NEA), which underpins the knowledge, understanding, skills and level of independence in research required by further education and employers. These valuable transferrable skills that A Level Geography offers can be applied to their future educational and career choices, whatever they may be.