KS3 Geography · Year 8 · ages 12–13
Six half-term units, in the order we teach them: Africa as a continent, not a country; the Nile Basin; population and urbanisation; Russia, China and India; the Ganges Basin, compared with the Nile; and fieldwork on a river or coast. Below is what each unit asks pupils to produce, the places it uses and the skills it teaches, taken from our Year 8 Geography scheme of work.
Six units. The two locating units come before the two region studies, because a region cannot stand for itself until the continent has stopped standing in for it.
Year 8, ages 12–13.
Unit 1a · Autumn 1 · 6 lessons · September – October
How wrong is the picture of Africa you arrived with?
Unit 1b · Autumn 2 · 6 lessons · November – December
What does a river do to the people who live along it?
Unit 2a · Spring 1 · 6 lessons · January – February
More than half the world now lives in cities. What changed, and what does it cost?
Unit 2b · Spring 2 · 6 lessons · February – March
What does it take to govern a country that spans eleven time zones, or to feed one and a half billion people?
Unit 3a · Summer 1 · 6 lessons · April – May
Two great rivers, two enormous populations. Why is one basin short of water and the other drowning in it?
Unit 3b · Summer 2 · 6 lessons · June – July
Does the river actually do what the textbook diagram says it does?
The scheme maps each requirement of the statutory programme of study for key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2013) to the unit that teaches it. Pupils should be taught to…
This year deliberately does not cover glaciation, or the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present. Both are named in the statutory physical list and both are held to Year 9 unit 1a, where they carry the climate work rather than sitting as a topic on their own. The polar and hot desert environmental regions are located this year but studied properly in Year 9 2b. The key stage map at the back shows every statement against the year that teaches it.
Two PDFs sit behind this page, and they are meant to be used together: the scheme of work to plan the year, the knowledge organisers to put in front of pupils.
Geography · Key Stage 3£4.99
Full description on the Year 8 Geography scheme of work page.
The statutory programme of study for key stage 3 geography (DfE, 2013)·60 pages, 19 sections·For heads of geography, subject leaders and every teacher who has to deliver it
KS3 Geography · Year 8 · six A4 sheets£3.99
Full description on the Year 8 Geography knowledge organisers page.
Written to Empower Educators Year 8 Geography scheme of work·6 pages, 6 sections·For geography teachers and heads of department. Printed one per pupil
Six half-term units, in the order they are taught: Africa: A Continent, Not a Country, A Region in Africa: The Nile Basin, Population and Urbanisation: Where Everyone Is Going, Asia: Russia, China and India, A Region in Asia: The Ganges Basin, and What It Shares with the Nile and Fieldwork Two: Rivers, Coasts and Measuring the Real Thing.
A written answer to 'what is Africa like?' that refuses the question and explains why, using at least four named countries; An explanation of why Egypt's population lives where it does, built from the basin's physical geography; Two population pyramids compared, with the difference explained rather than described; A map of Asia annotated with the physical features that explain where its people are — and are not; A comparison of the Nile and Ganges basins that states similarities, differences and links, each supported by located evidence; A conclusion stating whether the class's own measurements support the downstream model, with the figures.
It maps each requirement of the statutory programme of study for key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2013) to the unit that teaches it, and on this year the scheme is plain: “This year deliberately does not cover glaciation, or the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present.”
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