THE CURRICULUM - GEOGRAPHY

Geography is the study of the earth and its people. It allows us to study our surroundings and helps us to understand them better.

Year 7

The starting point for pupils is the local area and the home environment. From this they go onto to study the U.K. and its links with other countries. Pupils will then study rivers - the features of them, the benefits and the problems with them. Pupils then complete the year by looking at settlement, population and world sport.

Year 8

Pupils begin year 8 by studying coasts, then moving on to look at weather and climate. The relationships between countries and people are examined in the unit on globalistion. The interrelations between human activities and the physical environment are explored in the units on ecosystems and resources. The changing role of shopping completes year 8.

Year 9

Development begins year nine before pupils go on to focus on an example of a developed and developing country- in this case Italy and Kenya.

The destructive power of natural hazards are explored next with the emphasis on earthquakes and volcanoes. Pupils also look at what benefits these hazards can provide. Pupils complete year nine by looking at how people's actions can have global affects.

GCSE

This is an option in years 10 and 11. Pupils follow OCR Syllabus B (Avery Hill). The four units they study are:

• People, work and development
• People and place
• Climate, the environment and people
• Water, landforms and people
• Key ideas within each unit are studied through examples from the UK and worldwide, with particular emphasis on countries at different stages of economic development.

Assessment is by two exam papers and two pieces of coursework -a written study and an oral.