The Geography Department aims to develop students' understanding about the world around them. It aims to help students consider their future world. By considering key issues, landforms and world changes, students are able to develop a range of key skills. This development of skills provides them with great opportunities for future development and employability.
We want to create successful learners who progress and achieve, considerate individuals who lead safe and healthy lives and responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
Geography is a crucial subject for students to learn, to understand about the formation of our world, how people impact and change our world and how it can be preserved for the future.
Please explore these pages to find out more about what we offer.
We aim:
Knowledge and understanding of human behaviour, its consequences for other humans and the world they inhabit are important to all students in understanding the world in which we live.
Geography allows you to develop key world information and to develop a variety of skills. A successful Geographer will be able to:
At Louth Academy we have a strong team of dedicated and professional Geography teachers who are passionate about teaching the subject.
We offer dedicated, well equipped and comfortable classrooms, with interactive facilities; we also offer a wide range of quality resources and subject specific software.
Key Stage 3
Our curriculum is based around seven ‘big ideas’ – environments, processes, patterns, interaction, change, perspectives and sustainability. These also tie in with the Academy’s wider Curriculum Themes. Our classrooms feature displays designed to encourage our young geographers to link their ideas and learning…not to see each new topic as isolated from the last one etc.
All students study Geography at Key Stage 3 in line with the National Curriculum but our learning has been carefully sequenced so that the whether students complete one or both key stages, they will have a much better range and depth of knowledge and a suite of transferable skills by the end of their time in our care. They will also be able to connect their learning both within geography but also between geography and their other subjects.
Year 7 – exploring the UK
In Year 7 students study the Geography of the United Kingdom. This includes a map skills-based introduction, an investigation into our natural landscapes formed through the work of rivers, the sea and also ice. Later in the year we study British weather and climate, before switching our focus to UK cities, our changing population and our major cities as well as a look at the challenges faced by the UK’s more deprived areas. Each unit is completed with a different skills-based enquiry. The topics are carefully sequenced to illustrate the links between our natural and human environments.
Year 8 – exploring the wider world
In Year 8 we study the Geography of the Wider World. This encompasses Plate Tectonics, Extreme Weather and Global Ecosystems before moving on to investigations into disparities in global wealth. We have a detailed focus on Africa before completing the year by investigating a range of contemporary global issues, from plastic in the oceans and climate change through to the problem of threats to our wilderness areas and the geography of conflict zones. As with Year 7, the topics have been carefully sequenced to allow students to better appreciate the forces that shape our planet’s natural environments and then how human activities can change these environments in negative or positive ways.
Year 9 – Geography in Focus – Our Living World and our influence upon it
This year sees a more in-depth series of enquiries to a smaller range of topics and themes – rainforest and hot desert biomes – worlds of challenge and opportunity and ones increasingly under threat. We also explore our relationships with food, water and energy, before embarking on an in-depth study of our rapidly urbanising world, with a focus on Rio de Janeiro and Curitiba in Brazil.
At Key Stage 4, students complete a full GCSE qualification in Geography following the AQA 9-1 syllabus, with examinations taking place at the end of Year 11; students are also required to take part in fieldwork. They will sit three examinations at the end of Year 11:
Paper 1: Living with the Physical Environment (35% of GCSE);
Paper 2: Challenges in the Human Environment (35% of GCSE);
Paper 3: Geographical Applications (30% of GCSE).
Students studying this GCSE will also undertake fieldwork, practising different methods of data collection for both Human and Physical Geography; these skills along with all additional content will be tested in examination papers at the end of Year 11.
Year 10 – our hazardous world and following the rock cycle…
Year 11 - Our changing economic world and the UK’s place within it…
At Key Stage 4, GCSE students undertake two fieldtrips to contrasting environments, enabling them to develop their knowledge and understanding of both physical and human geography. Examples of past fieldtrips include a visit to the Lincolnshire Coast to investigate the impact of coastal management, and a visit to Hull to study urban regeneration in the Marina area as well as differing environmental quality in Avenue v Myton wards
The study of Geography lets you develop skills which could lead to many different career choices. Many people who have studied Geography have gone into the following fields:
Accountancy, Administration, Archaeology, Architecture, Barrister, Broadcasting, Civil Service, Diplomatic Service, Drama Theatre and the Performing Arts, Education, Environment and Conservation, Finance, Information Management, Media, Teaching, Public Relations, Journalist, Legal Executive, Police, Politics, Publishing, Sales and Marketing, Solicitor, Tourism, Town Planning, TV Researchers, Lawyers
Geography is highly regarded by many employers and universities due to the wide range of skills and knowledge that students acquire.