Geography
Geography Subject Staff
|
Mrs McClurg |
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Head of Geography |
|
Miss Draper |
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Teacher of Humanities |
|
Miss Jennings |
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Teacher of Geography |
|
Mr Hurst |
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Teacher of Humanities |
Statement of Intent:
What do we want from our curriculum?
Our department vision in Geography is to create a relevant, topical and inspiring curriculum that develops inquisitive young people who have passion in exploring and understanding the world in which they live. We have a varied demographic at Ormskirk whose prior experience of Geography has led us to deciding the topics that we study. Given the nature of the many varied primary settings our pupils arrive from, we have designed Year 7 as being our 'setting the foundations' stage of the KS3 curriculum, with a goal to enhance and stretch all prior knowledge whilst ensuring that pupils' knowledge of place and concepts is on a level playing field. As we enter Year 8, we aim to 'deepen understanding' of all key areas of what we deem to be the fundamentals of geography, this is largely underpinned by the KS3 National Curriculum. Year 9 is a wonderful opportunity to 'Think Synoptically'. This whole section of the key stage has been designed to allow our pupils to make connections between places, learning that all locations have a multi faceted link to Geography, and ensuring that we do not sell a single story of any one location. Our geography team believe that this approach allows for both breadth of location and depth of understanding of key geographical phenomena, and we constantly interleave place and concepts throughout the 7 year curriculum. We have spent countless hours carefully sequencing our curriculum and identifying the key knowledge that we want our pupils to 'know' and 'know how to do'. This is married up with a consistent approach to assessment which pupils are familiar with and is fed back in a way which guides pupils to making greater progress and addresses misconceptions.
What do we want for our pupils?
We have made every effort to ensure that our curriculum is accessible and engaging for all pupils, including those with SEND. We have done this through taking guidance from NASEN and incorporating key ideas into our every day practice. We want our pupils at Ormskirk School to understand the impact they can have on a local and global scale and pupils who are able to make synoptic links to demonstrate their understanding of a wide range of geographical ideas. We aim to create lessons that are current and exciting, updated frequently to reflect the ever-changing nature of our subject. A key intention is to ensure that pupils understand how places have changed over time and how we can learn from this, predict changes for the future and act upon current global issues. In doing this we aim to contribute towards a generation of pupils who have an awareness of the issues our planet faces with regards to climate change, population growth and management of resources. We have identified these, along with knowledge of physical processes, sustainability, development & vulnerability, cultural understanding and diversity and the interdependence between the human and physical landscapes as being key concepts which underpin our curriculum. We are fortunate to live in an ideal location in the North West of England that give us huge opportunity to explore a range of landscapes. We see this as being key to our pupil enjoyment and understanding of the subject. We have closely linked areas of the curriculum to 'Our island home', and ensure that we link other places we study, back to the UK to allow for comparative context, meaning pupils are equipped with concrete knowledge of environments and landscapes, before attempting the more abstract.
What is our wider curriculum offer?
The ultimate aim is to create geographers who are fully prepared with the concepts and skills to be able to embark on a future as a Geographer, through the study of GCSE and/or Geography in a further educational setting, ideally, in continuing study with us at Ormskirk 6th Form and beyond. To support this we have put together a bespoke package of CEIAG opportunities, meeting the Gatsby benchmark 4, fieldwork theory and visits as well as international trips. We offer frequent out of classroom learning experiences including fieldwork to a variety of locations in Great Britain, and on within our local community throughout the key stages. We hope to enrich our pupils, by offering them other experiential learning opportunities such as our tour to the Bay of Naples to experience classroom concepts out in the field, experience new cultures and develop their place knowledge further.
