Geography

Geography is about asking questions. What? Where? Who? When? Why? How?

Key Stage 3 - Core text: Oxford Geography 1,2 & 3

All pupils study Geography at Key stage 3 and cover topics which reflect a range of scales and include:

  • Exploring the UK
  • Countries of contrasting stages of development, e.g  France & Ghana 
  • Issues of topical significance, e.g. growing population and resource use, shopping & crime
  • Tourism and its impacts in the UK, the EU and in LEDCs 
  • The challenge of sustainability in different aspects from tourism to energy use

 

Key Stage 4 – Geography is a popular GCSE option. From September 2009 girls will follow the AQA A Specification which includes the study of:

  • The Restless Earth
  • Water on the Land
  • The Coastal Zone
  • Changing Urban Environments
  • Changing Rural Environments
  • Tourism

 

The girls will complete a piece of local fieldwork investigation, carried out through fieldwork at Nettlecombe Court Field Studies Centre in Somerset for 5 days. Topics studied include footpath erosion, honeypot sites, urban morphology, meanders and longshore drift.

AS & A2 level
The AS and A2 courses follow the Edexcel specification. This is a contemporary course which encourages understanding of geography in the news and gives a good balance of physical and human geography topics.

AS Level - Core text: OUP AS Geography for Edexcel

  • Global Challenges: World at Risk (natural hazards and climate change) and Going Global (globalisation and population change).
  • Geographical Investigations: Extreme Weather and Unequal Spaces. This course also involves girls visiting Nettlecombe Court Field Studies Centre in Somerset for 5 days to carry out fieldwork on flooding in Taunton, local weather patterns, comparing rural settlements and comparing census districts in Taunton.

 

A2 Level - Core text: OUP A2 Geography for Edexcel
 

  • Contested Planet: Use and management of resources eg. Water conflicts, energy security, biodiversity under threat, superpower geography, bridging the development gap, the technological fix.
  • Geographical Research: an opportunity for girls to choose one topic from 6 options to research independently so allowing them to follow their area of interest. Topics vary from tectonic hazards and cold environments to food supply issues.