Geography

KS4 Exam Board: AQA

At Lynch Hill Enterprise Academy, geography is important because:

• It helps students make sense of a fast-changing, interconnected world – from their local area to the global scale.
• It builds powerful knowledge and geographical thinking: the ability to describe, explain and evaluate the physical and human processes that shape places.
• It develops literacy, oracy and a sense of place, opening students’ horizons beyond their immediate experience.

Curriculum

Our curriculum is designed to:

• Build knowledge and skills progressively across KS3:   

o   Describe (Year 7 Foundations);

o   Explain (Year 8 Processes); and

o   Evaluate (Year 9 Issues)

o   Assess - mirroring the assessment-objective ladder at GCSE.

• Weave the threads of place, scale and diversity of place through every year group.
• Prepare students securely for AQA GCSE Geography (8035) and for life as informed, responsible global citizens.

In geography, we deliver the curriculum through:

• Geography is distinctive: it bridges the sciences and humanities, developing both quantitative reasoning (data, graphs and statistics) and qualitative understanding of people and place.
• Enquiry-led lessons: built on real, located case studies from local to global scale, with explicit teaching of geographical skills.
• A strong literacy focus (knowledge organisers, tier-3 vocabulary and support for EAL learners), with extended writing scaffolded through essay writing and fieldwork embedded across the key stages.

Curriculum Overview

Assessment

• Regular low-stakes retrieval practice to build and check knowledge over time.
• End-of-unit assessments with question-level analysis to identify and close gaps.
• Extended writing marked against the PEEL structure.

GCSE Assessment

Three written exams sat at the end of Year 11.

Papers and weighting:

o   Paper 1 – Living with the physical environment (35%);

o   Paper 2 – Challenges in the human environment (35%);

o   Paper 3 – Geographical applications, including fieldwork (30%).

• Students make strong progress and leave well prepared for GCSE and beyond.
• Students can confidently describe, explain and evaluate geographical processes and issues through contextual scenarios.
• Students become informed, curious global citizens who understand their world and their place within it.

Revision

• AQA GCSE Geography revision guides and textbooks, available through the department.
• The departmental revision website, accessed using school email accounts only.