The geography department at SNHS offers an up-to-date, relevant and issue-based curriculum with sustainability at the core. The programme is designed to promote curiosity and wonder about the world in which we live, aiming to create responsible citizens that care about the future of our planet. We encourage pupils to be critical, independent learners through enquiry and problem-solving activities. Skills have been embedded into our course to ensure pupils are well prepared for life in the 21st century.

Topics taught offer both breadth and depth, with a carefully designed sequence that builds on locational knowledge from local to global environments, and a range of physical and human environments which allows pupils to fully understand the processes and interactions within and between them.

Aims of the Department

• Stimulate interest, enjoyment and a sense of wonder about the world’s places and environments 
• Help students build on their own experiences to help investigate places at all scales, from personal to global. 
• Introduce and help explain how places and landscapes are formed 
• Introduce and explain how people and their environment interact, and how economies, societies and environments are interconnected.  
• Incorporate an active enquiry approach to investigation (that encourages questioning and critical thinking) such that students become confident learning inside and outside the classroom 
• Include fieldwork as an essential element of geographical study that also makes a major contribution to helping students live safe, healthy lives 
• Involve students in using maps, visual images and new technologies, including GIS, as essential and creative tools for geographical study 
• Inspire students to become global citizens, with all the responsibility and commitment to people and the planet it implies 
• Encourage students to develop a range of knowledge and skills that will provide a foundation for future study and a preparation for employment or higher education 
• In Year 7 and 8 topics studied include: Fantastic Places, Rivers and Floods, Weather and Climate, Population, Urbanisation, Ecosystems (Can the Earth Cope?), Energy, China, and Tectonic Activity.