Key Stage 3
The geography department here at Thornhill Community Academy are dedicated to providing a relevant, broad and balanced curriculum, which inspires learners. 

The KS3 curriculum has been organised into half termly themes. These are: 

• My World
• Hazardous World
• Unique World
• Unequal World
• Future World
• Practical World

Lesson content is designed around each half termly theme and builds throughout Y7, 8 and 9. Students will be encouraged to make links between topic themes and half termly concepts through structured recall and retention strategies such as do now tasks, low stakes tests and end of topic creative assessments, as well as summative and formative assessments. Lessons are planned to be engaging, broad and expand students’ cultural capital and understanding of geography related careers. Opportunities for trips at KS3 will help students apply their understanding of topics learnt throughout the half termly units. The curriculum has a particular focus on preparing students with the transferable skills needed for future learning and beyond. These include, but are not limited to, critical thinking, problem solving, evaluation and research skills.

Why study this subject at GCSE?
Geography is everywhere. By studying this you will gain an overall, excellent understanding of how the world works around you and how we as humans are altering it. The subject looks at how human interactions can create distinctive geographic processes and changes to landscapes. How are people changing the world? What problems are we causing? And How can we manage these issues for the future?

You will learn a wide range of skills including collection, presentation and analysis of data through the study of fieldwork skills and real-life application of knowledge. This is great preparation for further geographic studies at College and University.

Description of the course
Here at Thornhill we complete a GCSE geography using AQA as our exam board. The course is broken down into three papers: 

Paper 1: Living with the Physical Environment

• Rivers, Tectonics, Coasts, Ecosystems, Weather Hazards and Climate Change
• 1 hour 30 minutes 
• 88 marks 
• 35% weighting 

Paper 2: Challenges in the Human Environment

• Urban Issues and Challenges, Changing Economic World and Challenges of Resource Management
• 1 hour 30 mins 
• 88 marks 
• 35% weighting 

Paper 3: Geographic Applications 

• Issue evaluation (Pre-release), Fieldwork and Geographic Skills 
• 1 hour 30 mins 
• 76 Marks 
• 30% weighting 
• Pre-Release available 12 weeks before exam

How the course is assessed

• X3 GCSE exams at the end of y11
• X3 Star assessments throughout each academic year in the lead up to GCSE examinations 
• Y11 Mock Exams (Jan-Feb)

Other information
As part of the course students will be partaking in a field trip to the Holderness Coast. Half of the day, they will conduct a physical fieldwork data collection task measuring the rate of Long Shore Drift. The second half of the day consists of a human field work data collection, in which an environmental quality survey will be taken at three locations around Bridlington.

Curriculum Plans
Curriculum plans for Geography can be viewed from the links below.