Geography is an umbrella subject that links sciences with languages. At Hayle Academy our geography curriculum provides students with the tools to understand and make sense of the local landscape and compare it to national and global locations.  It is a topical subject and gives students the skills to enter careers in growing industries.  Quite simply, students are more employable for studying geography. 

Students will acquire a broad knowledge and skills set when studying geography.  Our curriculum has been designed to make geographical links with increased complexity. It reflects our ambition to challenge our students beyond a purely knowledge based curriculum. Knowledge is balanced between physical processes, human processes and the links between them, for example in topics such as rivers and glaciation and wild weather.  Environmental geography is also studied in topics such as resources and sustainability and living in isolation in the Faroe Islands. 

The aim of our geography curriculum is to enable students to gain a broad knowledge of physical and human geography and be able to make links between them. It is a linking curriculum. Students leave able to make connections between their local area and national/global issues. They also use geographical links to develop the standard of their extended writing. So many of the world’s current problems boil down to geography, and need the geographers of the future to help us understand them – a broad curriculum that facilitates geographical links enables this. 

Repeat concepts are interleaved to show how social change has evolved over time. Our repeat concepts are:

• Interdependence

• Development

• Climate change

• Sustainability

• Physical processes

• Environment vs. economy

• Infrastructure
• Management strategies

The geography curriculum explicitly delivers knowledge on British Democracy as part of the Global Values curriculum and this extends to compare to other political approaches in countries such as Syria and North Korea.  There is a strong emphasis on respect, both for the environment and cultures and students are given the time and support to discuss these in a safe and inclusive classroom.

“So many of the world’s current problems boil down to geography, and need the geographers of the future to help us understand them.”  Michael Palin