Curriculum overview for Key Stage 3 Geography
National Curriculum programme of study: Geography
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7b8699ed915d131105fd16/SECONDARY_national_curriculum_-_Geography.pdf

Curriculum intent – the knowledge, understanding and skills that students will learn
The Key Stage 3 Geography curriculum aspires to create Geographers, rather than students who study Geography. The course aims to educate students in Locational knowledge by deepening their spatial awareness of the world around them. Some units focus on important world countries such as the United Kingdom, India and China and other units, focusing on continents such as Africa and named case studies, are integrated into all of the units. We want students to understand that places can be viewed at different scales i.e. local, regional, national, continental and global, and that the concepts that we teach, such as ‘Development’ can be applied to these different places. The course also educates students about human geography and physical geography. We teach students how the physical world can affect human processes such as the impact of hazards on development and how the human world can influence the physical world through issues such as climate change. An important part of the Geography curriculum is teaching students the necessary mapping, graphical, and data interpretation skills that enable them to access threshold learning and embed this knowledge fully. These skills do have independent units such as ‘Map Skills’ in Year 7, and are widely embedded throughout the three-year course. 

Curriculum implementation – teaching, learning and assessment strategies
The Key Stage 3 Geography curriculum is delivered in six units per academic year, one unit being taught each half term. Each unit contains about 12 lessons, each with clear objectives about the learning outcomes to be achieved. Every lesson aims to challenge students and assess their learning through some independent activities such as mapping tasks, numerical tasks or written tasks. The tasks are reviewed by students and teachers through answers and exemplars, and students have the opportunity to reflect on their learning. Students are set homework once every two weeks. Each unit has an accompanying homework booklet and teachers designate tasks from these booklets for homework, which extend and embed class learning. Other homework tasks focus on strategies to memorise and embed learning, for example, completing mnemonic tasks which require students to use a particular revision technique taught in class to memorise content in preparation for an assessment. Students are assessed formatively in lessons through the tasks within lessons and through questioning. More formal formative assessment takes place through book reviews and written or skill-based tasks that the students complete. Summative assessment is embedded in the course and uses interleaving to ensure that students are always reviewing prior learning. This is important in Geography as many of the topics are interlinked. It also promotes good habits for students who are progressing on to a linear GCSE course and enables teachers to ensure that areas of knowledge that students do not understand are revisited.

Curriculum impact – intended outcomes for students 
At Blackfen School, the intent of the Geography team is to ensure that students have the literacy skills to confidently write about the subject in a structured manner, and the numeracy skills to analyse and dissect data and the mapping skills to confidently map and compare trends and data. By the end of the Key Stage 3 course, we want our students to have a wide and deep understanding of the world that they are entering and be able to connect to that world. Students should have a more holistic view of the world and understand that the human and physical worlds and interconnected. 

Assessment overview for Key Stage 3 Geography  
Year 7 / Year 8 / Year 9 
•    Written tasks using GCSE style command words
•    Mapping tasks to show the spatial distribution of data
•    Data response questions
•    Homework booklet to develop, extend and embed learning

In addition to on-going formative assessment based on classroom and home learning, summative assessment of students’ progress in Key Stage 3 Geography takes place in line with whole-school arrangements for assessment. Please see the Curriculum and Assessment policy on the Curriculum website page for further details about Key Stage 3 formal assessment.