Geography
Geography at HAB will teach a curriculum that offers all students powerful geographical knowledge that will allow them to become active citizens and workers in the complex modern world.
The delivery of this powerful knowledge will allow our students to acquire a ‘sense of the global’, permitting them to think geographically about the social justice issues encountered within our subject. The topics found in the discourses of the powerful will give agency to our students to feel empowered to enter these discourses with their own voices and experience. To unlock this powerful knowledge for all students, threshold concepts will be identified in each topic.
A ‘global sense of place’ does not happen through everyday experience. HAB’s Geography curriculum will embed in students the core geographical concepts, including but not limited to: globalisation, sustainability, mitigation and interdependence and climate. Furthermore, with access to the powerful knowledge students will understand, analyse and form their own opinions on real world problems.
Using climate change as an example, students are encouraged to understand that climate change is a multifaceted issue which needs to be understood at different scales: this includes the global whilst at the same time holding in mind that global processes result in different local impacts. Additionally, students will consider the complication of the variety of stakeholders that play their part in this complex question: varying from international laws set by NGOs to individual lifestyle choices. Geographical perspectives therefore encourage a deeper concept of interrelations, “enabling [students] to envisage alternatives” (Young and Lambert, 2014, 74).
We believe that knowledge can be questioned and challenged. Some knowledge is fallible and open to debate because it is susceptible to the limitations of theories and ideas created by people. As such a ‘tick-list’ of key facts does not constitute academic excellence; facts on their own are not knowledge.
The primary aim of the HAB Geography curriculum will be to deliver the substantive knowledge required to make sense of the world, for example climate change, geomorphic processes and development. Disciplinary knowledge will be imparted through fieldwork and data analysis, which will equip the students with ability to extract the Geographical knowledge from the world and sources around them. Thus, fieldwork opportunities will be imbedded into the curriculum for each year group, allowing them to apply to theory from substantive knowledge learnt in the classroom to practice whilst gaining the disciplinary knowledge required to successfully undertake fieldwork.
The curriculum will seek to blend the core and the hinterland to build a rich schema in the long-term memory of the students. Thus, allowing the students to make connections and links between any new knowledge to those learnt previously. In order to embed knowledge and comprehend it, the disparate elements of the curriculum, will be bound together by a grounding in a wide range of real examples of places and people (Willingham, 2009).
Geography is a discipline with two halves – human geography and physical geography. As both have different concepts, as well as distinct substantive and disciplinary knowledge, it is crucial that both are equally developed within the students. As a result, the new three-year KS3 Curriculum will contain modules which alternate between human and then physical geography. This will ensure that students have regular opportunities to revisit the skills and knowledge of both disciplines and creates a form of interleaving and retrieval to promote deeper recall and understanding. A three-year KS3 model will provide all students an entitlement to learn geography to a high standard whether they decide to pursue this to GCSE level or not, with powerful ways of thinking about the world embedded in their schema. This entitlement will support their knowledge, development and skill in all other subjects.
Fundamental powerful knowledge concepts and skills
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The following are the powerful geographical concepts which will act as a thread from KS3 to KS5 (substantive knowledge): |
Skills taught throughout the curriculum (disciplinary knowledge) |
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Causality Human and physical interactions Systems Inequality Globalisation Mitigation Interdependence Sustainability Resilience Development |
Graphical skills Cartographic skills and interpreting data from maps Statistical skills Describing location and spatial distribution Critical thinking skills Presenting and interpreting data Fieldwork skills, including recording, analysing and evaluating data
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Each of the individual concepts stated above are independently essential powerful knowledge that allows students to continue with Geographical study. They have been selected from the core concepts taught in the A-Level syllabus and act as a thread across the curriculum. Students will revisit these concepts and they will be used to create understanding of interconnections across different topics.
There needs to be a solid grounding in each individual concept, as this allows for a deeper comprehension of the geographical knowledge. Each individual concept will sit as isolated elements of both human and physical geography within the schema of our students, however link back to previously connected content to allow for a spiral learning which promotes knowledge becoming ‘stickier’. This will support students in becoming proficient geographical writers whose conceptual understanding allows them to apply their knowledge and develop synoptic links in various contexts.
Actively anti-racist Geography
Time has been taken to consider the opportunities to discuss racism and to raise and break down the misconceptions surrounding this. The geography department have reviewed the idea of ‘The Danger of the Single Story’ with reference to African nations and behind simplified as LIDCs or poorer nations. We have actively adapted the hinterland surrounding ‘Cairo to Cape Town’, which is a topic taught in KS3 about Africa. To ensure it shows the true breadth and depth of Africa, we have developed a project where students research different African nations to unpick the misconception that they are all LIDCs and to share the strengths and riches of the continent. To increase the breath of ethnicities and races we learn about within the lens of geography we have introduced a new Year 9 KS3 module on Asia, which aims to share the diversity of the continent across both the human and physical geography.
Across KS3 and KS4, we consider the modern UK and how ethnicity and identity impact and influence place. During KS4, we have considered the South Asian Diaspora that has influenced the Balti Triangle in Birmingham, now we wish to extend this to reflect the lives and backgrounds of our students. At KS4 when learning about Leeds’ ethnic diversity we will embed discussions surrounding Windrush and EU migration. In KS3, we will also look at Britain’s migration story, and how the country has been built by migration during the Year 8 ‘Borders’ topic.
The curriculum plan for all years can be downloaded below.
