Geography helps students make sense of the world around them by developing their enquiry skills - encouraging questioning, investigation and critical thinking about issues affecting the world and people's lives, now and in the future. This subject helps develop successful learners who can suggest solutions to local and global issues. We aim to inspire students to become global citizens by exploring their own place in the world, their values and responsibilities to other people, to the environment and the sustainability of the planet.
In Year 7, students will focus on building foundational map skills while bridging gaps from their Key Stage 2 (KS2) education, especially in light of missed content due to COVID-19 disruptions. The curriculum will emphasize the local area as well as the broader UK context, laying the groundwork for understanding global geography. Students will develop decision-making skills through real-life scenarios and explore diverse environments, including polar regions, hot deserts, tropical rainforests, and coral reefs. By studying contrasting environments, they'll revisit key geographical concepts and vocabulary, deepening their understanding of global issues and the natural world's diversity. Throughout the unit, students will engage with news reports and articles to understand the real-world significance of environmental challenges. They'll also apply scientific knowledge of animal adaptations to analyse climatic features in different environments. Each environment studied will incorporate decision-making tasks to encourage critical thinking and extend students' oral and written communication skills. The curriculum aims to foster a holistic understanding of geography while promoting sustainability themes for future learning.
Assessment topics
Autumn Term:
Near places
Geographical skills
Is Great Britain still great?
Spring Term:
Fantastic Places
Polar
Hot arid
Summer Term:
Tropical rainforests
Coral Reefs
Careers in Geography focused upon in Year 7
In Year 8, students will delve deeper into the understanding of physical processes, drawing on scientific knowledge to explore the causes, impacts, and responses to various natural hazards worldwide. They will engage with recent case studies to analyse how these hazards manifest differently across different regions. The unit will also provide opportunities to enhance map skills, graph interpretation, and statistical analysis, reinforcing the importance of these tools in geographical understanding. Following the exploration of natural hazards, the curriculum will transition to studying weather hazards, allowing for a revisiting of key concepts and vocabulary to strengthen understanding. Additionally, students will investigate regions of the world considered economically prosperous or resource-rich, as well as those with significant biodiversity. This exploration will include examination of rapidly emerging economies like the BRICs and MINTs, facilitating comparisons across continents and deepening understanding of global economic dynamics. Furthermore, this unit will serve to revisit and reinforce key physical and human geography topics, challenging common misconceptions, particularly about specific continents. Through the lens of the "single story" concept, students will explore diverse perspectives and contrasts between continents, including comparisons with previously studied Asian countries and the UK.
Assessment Topics
Autumn Term:
Hazardous places
Tectonic hazards
Weather hazards
Spring Term:
Developing places
Summer Term:
Distant places
Africa: A continent of contrasts?
Careers in Geography focused on in Year 8
In Year 9, the curriculum aims to deepen students' understanding of both human and physical landscapes and processes, emphasizing changes over time. This progression builds upon prior knowledge of Great Britain and other major countries, preparing students for the transition to GCSE level study. The autumn term begins with a focus on key physical landscapes, allowing students to explore the underlying physical processes and resulting landforms, many of which are recognizable within the UK. This provides a solid foundation for understanding the physical geography of their own country. In the spring term, attention shifts to human characteristics, with a focus on locations within the UK as well as contrasting examples from around the world. This exploration enables students to analyse how human activity shapes landscapes and societies, fostering a broader understanding of global geography. Returning to river landscapes in the summer term offers an opportunity to revisit physical processes while also making connections to other previously studied physical landscapes. Additionally, these studies often lend themselves to accessible fieldwork opportunities, further enhancing students' learning experiences. The year culminates with an examination of distinctive landscapes around the world, consolidating learning from across Key Stage 3 and reinforcing understanding of both physical and human processes. This comprehensive approach ensures that students are well-prepared with strong foundations as they prepare to embark on GCSE geography studies.
Assessment Topics
Autumn Term:
Upland / lowland
Coastal
Spring Term:
Urban
Rural
Summer Term:
Rivers
Around the world
Careers focused on in Year 9
GIS Specialist - Using geographic information systems (GIS) to analyse spatial data and create maps for various applications, such as urban planning, environmental management, and disaster response
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What students will learn |
How it builds on learning |
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The Challenge of Natural Hazards This topic looks at a range of different natural hazards, tectonic hazards, weather hazards and climate change. This topic will look at the dynamic nature of physical processes and systems and human interaction with them in a variety of places and at a range of scales. It will consider the influence the level of development of a place can have on the impacts caused by hazards and the need for management strategies. |
Students begin their GCSE Geography journey studying Natural Hazards. This topic allows students to make a smooth transition from KS3 to KS4 successfully as they have already been introduced to some of the key concepts. Students will have some prior knowledge from the Year 8 ‘What challenges do places face’ topic and climate change. This topic in Y10 builds on the knowledge gained in KS3 and then moves on to much more challenging concepts such as global atmospheric circulation and the formation of tropical storms. This topic also builds on students’ prior knowledge of differing levels of development around the world. Students gain a deeper knowledge of how these tectonic hazards affect the levels of development and how the level of development within a country affects their ability to predict, prepare and protect. |
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Urban Issues and Challenges This topic looks at the fact a large and growing percentage of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Urban growth creates opportunities and challenges for cities in LICs (low-income countries) and NEEs (newly emerging economies). Students will study Rio de Janeiro as a case study of urban growth in a NEE. Urban change in cities in the UK leads to a variety of social, economic and environmental opportunities and challenges; students will study London as a case study of urban change in the UK. |
This topic will build on theories and concepts covered in Year 8 ‘Changing Cities’ such as urbanisation, urban change, urban growth, urban decline, and regeneration. It also means students are not just studying physical geography in Year 10 but are starting to build their knowledge and skills of human geography as well. |
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The Living World This topic looks at global ecosystems. Students start by looking at ecosystems at a range of scales and the interaction between their biotic and abiotic components. Students will the look at tropical rainforests and cold environments through two detailed case studies - the Amazon Rainforest and Svalbard. Students will understand the physical environment, the challenges and opportunities of these environments, and the impacts human interaction has on each environment leading to a need for sustainable management strategies. |
This topic encourages students to develop and extend their knowledge of locations, places, environments and processes. Students build on their KS3 understanding of ecosystems, biomes and their geographical locations, and the location and environmental characteristics of tropical rainforests – their climate, soils and biodiversity. Sustainable management is covered in more depth as students consider the three pillars of sustainability in more detail (social, economic, environmental). |
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The Challenge of Resource Management This topic looks at the importance of resources, namely food, water and energy and their significance to economic and social wellbeing. Students will develop an understanding of the global inequalities in the supply and consumption of resources, the changing demand and provision of resources in the UK and the opportunities and challenges these create. Students will then look more in depth at energy resources and the reasons for increasing energy consumption, factors affecting energy supply and the impacts of energy insecurity. They will then look at different strategies that can be used to increase energy supply and how to move towards a sustainable future. |
This topic develops a more complex understanding of natural resources introduced to students in the Development topic in Year 8. Students consider three resources with a UK focus (food, water, energy), before then exploring one of these in more detail (energy) with a global focus. |
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What students will learn |
How it builds on learning |
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Physical Landscapes in the UK Students will study coastal landscapes in the UK and river landscapes in the UK. Students will study the key physical processes that shape these environments and create unique landscapes. Students will study an example of each of these landscapes form the UK. Students will also look at how different management strategies can be used to protect coastlines from the effects of physical processes and to protect river landscapes from the effects of flooding. |
In this topic, there is a greater emphasis given to process studies that lead to an understanding of change. By considering processes linked to examples in the UK, students broaden and deepen their understanding of locational contexts, including greater awareness of the importance of scale. By considering management strategies, there is a greater stress on the multivariate nature of 'human-physical' relationships and interactions. |
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The Changing Economic World This topic looks at the global variations in economic development and quality of life that exist around the world. Students will develop their understanding of the global development gap and the causes and consequences of this. Students will then study strategies for reducing the global development gap. Students will then study economic futures in the UK and how major changes in the economy of the UK have affected, and will continue to affect, employment patterns and regional growth. |
The final topic finishes the content ready for Paper 2. This topic is taught at the end of Year 11 as the concepts are challenging and pull together skills built throughout KS3 and KS4. |
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Geographical Applications preparation The Geographical Applications unit is designed to be synoptic in that students will be required to draw together knowledge, understanding and skills from the full course of study. Section A: Issue evaluation A resource booklet about a controversial geographical issue will be released twelve weeks before the exam. Students will be guided through the resource through a series of lessons enabling them to become familiar with the material. Students will be guided through practice questions and a more extended piece of writing which will involve an evaluative judgement. Section B: Fieldwork Students will undertake two geographical enquiries (one in Year 10 to the Olympic Park in London, the other in Year 11 to Epping Forest). Students will collect primary data in the field. Students will apply knowledge and understanding to interpret, analyse and evaluate information and issues related to geographical enquiry and select, adapt and use a variety of skills and techniques to investigate questions and issues and communicate findings in relation to geographical enquiry. Geographical skills are embedded in this topic and feature in all other topics. |
Students develop and extend their competence in a range of skills including those used in fieldwork, in using maps and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and in researching secondary evidence, including digital sources. Students also develop their competence in applying sound enquiry and investigative approaches to questions and hypotheses and learn to ‘study like a geographer’. Students more independently apply geographical knowledge, understanding, skills and approaches appropriately and creatively to real world contexts, including fieldwork, and to contemporary situations and issues; and develop well-evidenced arguments drawing on their geographical knowledge and understanding. In fieldwork, there is an increased involvement of students in planning and undertaking independent enquiry in which skills and knowledge are applied to investigate geographical questions. Students become competent in a range of intellectual and communication skills, including the formulation of arguments, that include elements of synthesis and evaluation of material. |
Melbourn Village College
The Moor, Melbourn
Royston SG8 6EF
Tel: 01763 223400
Email: office@melbournvc.org Absence: absence@melbournvc.org
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Melbourn Village College is an academy of The Cam Academy Trust, a company limited by guarantee and registered in England and Wales with company number 0749 1945.
The registered office is at Comberton Village College, West Street, Comberton, Cambridgeshire, CB23 7DU
