KS3 Curriculum development and lessons

After a really tough OFSTED monitoring visit, just before the new framework came out, it was finally time to re-write the KS3 curriculum. I knew before this point that the inherited curriculum found in my NQT year was not fit for purpose for the students or the new KS4 curriculum and the aims of the government and OFSTED for a knowledge rich curriculum, just hadn't had a chance to start it as I was on my own. The positive side of this was that we were one of the first schools to be assessed against the new framework, which meant I got to ask lots of questions and get direction about sequencing correctly (what do they need to know, when and why they need to know it), assessing correctly (no GCSE questions, mark schemes, or levels), and feel more confident about the content that was being proposed for teaching.

I did a lot of research around how to create a successful curriculum and found that this document here spoke to me about targeting the weaknesses of the students and their needs for support throughout KS3, in order to support them in KS4.

I then looked at what packages were out there for KS3 curriculums. At this point, nothing had been published yet, but I knew that a few were due to come out as I'd been involved in surveys relating to content, tasks and activities, so I had a good idea about what to expect from them. For my school, I found that the Hodder KS3 progress in Geography would be the better fit for a few reasons.

1. It didn't directly affiliate itself with AQA.
2. It had a balance of national curriculum knowledge and extra challenge and depth of knowledge that wouldn't usually be found at KS3.
3. The synoptic topics were based around continents and has content in them that is interesting and links both backwards and forwards through the curriculum. This is evidenced in the long term plan here
4. I could see and amend a progress document for the curriculum, which included outlining embedded skills, links, numeracy, literacy, assessment and sign posts to what students should know, when they should know it and how much they should know. I've included the amended document for my school here. It may look complicated, but it allowed for detailed lesson planning, sequencing and alignment of books for scrutiny and assessments. It starts at the bottom with the skills and knowledge that our year 7's come to us with, historically, and ends with what a year 9 leaver should know.

I plan on uploading all of the lessons that are planned to date, for each topic you'll see the links to the topics gradually fill in as I download them all and upload them to Google drive. Use them as you wish, or don't - I may be too late to the party now!

Topic 1: Becoming a geographer - can be found here (note: some lessons in this were optional, depending on ability from baseline - adapting curriculum to suit the needs of each pupil).
Topic 2:
Topic 3: What is an economy? - can be found here
Topic 4:
Topic 5: Is the geography of Russia a curse or benefit? - Can be found Here
Topic 6:
Topic 7: Development can be found here
Topic 8:
Topic 9:
Topic 10:Discovering Oceans can be found here
Topic 11:
Topic 12: Africa can be found here
Topic 13:
Topic 14:
Topic 15:
Transition - KS2-3 here