Geography

The geography department continues to be a highly successful department with 85% of students achieving A*-C this year and a super 33% of these students achieving an A* or A grade at GCSE.  We now run a residential field course for our AS students and take them to Manchester University to taste degree level work.  We continue with the successful rivers coursework in year 10.  We also have a new addition to the department with the arrival of Mrs Keough who brings specialist knowledge of rivers, soils and coasts to the department.

Geography is a very successful department within the school and consistently produces very high GCSE results, AS and A level results. The last 4 years' GCSE results have all been over 65% A*- C.

Key Stage 3

Year 7
Map Skills
Settlement
Exploring England
Transport
Flooding
Weather

Year 8
Economic Activities
Egypt
Glaciation
World Sport

Year 9
Rivers
Earthquakes and Volcanoes
Development
Tropical Rainforests
Limestone scenery and National Parks

Key Stage 4
AQA Syllabus A

Physical Topics Human Topics

Tectonic Activity Settlement
River Landscapes Industry
Glacial Landscapes Managing Resources
Coasts Population

Assessment
The course will be assessed as follows:

Examination 75%
2 exams, taken on either higher or foundation tier.
Foundation Tier: grades C-G
Higher Tier: grades A*-D

Paper 1 is 40% of the total mark and is 1hour 45 minutes long.
Paper 2 is 35% of the total mark and is 1 hour 30 minutes long.

Coursework 25%
Each candidate will submit a piece of course work based on shopping patterns and habits along Yarm High Street. It should not exceed 2500 words and must contain appropriate evidence of personal research, ICT, photographs and diagrams.

Students partake in annual field trips to Yarm in year 10 and an international trip to Aaran in Year 12.