Geography

Course summary

Geography is a topical, contemporary subject which is especially attractive for those who want to maintain strong links with the ‘real world’ outside the classroom. The Geography specification will cover all key skill areas, with a particular focus on developing students’ literacy skills through extended essay writing; numeracy skills through data presentation, interpretation and analysis, and mathematical calculations; and ICT skills through the research and presentation of data in fieldwork projects and Coursework. The new specification demands a higher level of numeracy skills, and students will need to understand and use statistical data analysis techniques such as measures of central tendency and dispersion, Spearman’s Rank, Chi-squared test and Student t-test. Evaluative essays also need to be written throughout the course, and therefore a high level of confidence in English Language and Maths would be preferable. Coursework will be completed in Year 2 of the course as an Independent Investigation and will be based on students’ own primary and secondary data collection. Fieldwork is a compulsory element of the new specification: 4 days must be completed for the 2-year A-level; this will involve both coastal and urban fieldwork, and will take place through day trips. There will be a cost for these trips. An optional enrichment field trip has been organised for second-year Geographers. This is an overseas residential trip and for the last 4 years, we have visited Iceland.