Geography
Subject Leader: Mrs G Dawson
The department’s overall aim is to provide a broad, exciting, challenging and contemporary geography experience.
The geography curriculum addresses physical, human and environmental geography. Geographical skills and place knowledge are integrated into the themes that are studied.
We teach about a variety of geographical issues that often start from an intriguing question. The activities and questions students undertake provide significant scope to be taught in a variety of different ways.
The geography taught makes connections between different aspects of subject. Such interactions make for more challenging geography. The activities students are asked to do encourage geographical thinking that requires connecting knowledge. The assessments set provide the opportunities for students to show the extent of their geographical understanding.
We try to make use of examples in our teaching that are topical and in the news. We try to update our subject knowledge so that the topics we are teaching are taught using up-to-date ideas.
Learning Environment & Resources
All students are well supported in a friendly environment and are welcome to seek extra support from their teachers when and if needed. At GCSE and A level, students are encouraged to buy the revision guide that accompanies the course and all electronic teaching resources are made accessible to students so that they can review their work or develop their independent skills.
Key Stage 4
Key Stage 4/ GCSE
At GCSE students follow the OCR A geography specification. Considerable deliberation was given to choosing the OCR A specification at Coppice. All colleagues were involved in the decision making and the pros and cons of all specifications were considered.
This specification was chosen because of its breadth of topics and its more streamlined content.
Given the constraints over the content as described above, there is considerable flexibility in the way we teach and in the case studies that we teach.
The units that students’ study for paper 1 are: landscapes of the UK; People of the UK; environmental challenges in the UK. Paper 2 includes: ecosystems of the planet; people of the planet; and global environmental challenges. Paper 3 focuses on questions about geographical skills and field work.
Post 16
Post 16/ KS5/ A level
Students can opt to undertake A level geography, which provides an excellent basis to complete the subject at undergraduate level.
Students follow the popular AQA course which covers both physical and human geography and has a coursework component (NEA Non-Examined Assessment) which is worth 20% and is based on field work. The physical geography paper includes water and carbon cycles, coastal systems and landscapes and hazards. The Human geography paper includes contemporary urban environments, changing places and global systems and global governance.
Extra Curricular
Extra-curricular activities and trips
Students undertake a number of field visits in KS4 and KS5. In the past at KS4/GCSE visits have been organised to Birmingham, Blackpool, Castleton in the Peak District and Carding Mill Valley in Shropshire. At KS5/A level previous visits have been organised to Birmingham, Liverpool and the west coast of Wales around Aberystwyth.
