Geography
We encourage all of our students to feel part not only of our school and local community but to embrace their position as global citizens.
Further details of the curriculum can be found in the documents downloadable from the bottom of this page.
We believe that all students can gain a level of global competence allowing them to succeed in all areas of their life. In order to do this we have created a curriculum that offers our pupils the opportunity to gain a depth and breadth of knowledge in our exciting, innovative and ever-changing subject.
They develop a range of skills including extrapolation, interpretation, graphicacy, GIS, enquiry, evaluation, cartography, numeracy and in particular the advanced skill of synopticity.
Alongside this, we offer extra-curricular opportunities for international fieldwork and we pride ourselves on being a department with high academic standards alongside building a real community of geographers. Our students are our department – they help out, they have a real voice about what we teach, and they have opportunities throughout the year to engage with our gardening club, ‘geeky geography’ meetings and take advantage of our revision opportunities.
Global competency
Geography is the study of relationships between physical and human phenomena that give rise to spatial patterns on the surface of the earth. Whilst other disciplines may study landscape, flora and fauna, the atmosphere, people and culture, the built environment and political territories, geography is the only discipline that concerns itself with the relationships between these resulting in spatial differentiation.
Geography provides students with the means to think about the world in new ways. We call this thinking geographically. Thinking geographically helps in the pursuit of truth. It is the pursuit of truth which distinguishes disciplinary knowledge from everyday social and cultural knowledge and is a priority for our curriculum.
Geography skills are highly desirable by employers. The ability to problem solve, integrate effectively with others, utilise high numeracy and literacy skills and to assess and evaluate to a high standard are taught through geography.
Even more importantly we teach about the world as it currently is, changing economies and populations, problems faced by cities, sustainable development and the problems facing us in a resource-squeezed world.
However, we teach from a positive perspective. Human ingenuity has led to a less divided world, to the development of technology that saves lives and protects environments and a real hope for future generations to create a more equitable and sustainable world.
We are proud to have been re-awarded the Secondary Geography Quality Mark in 2020, awarded by the Geographical Association.
Follow us on Twitter @HARGeography.
