Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
We are delighted to announce the arrival of our brand new GCSE Geography course on CENTURY, the AI-powered teaching and learning platform. Mapped precisely to the AQA GCSE specification, most of the content for papers 1 and 2 is now available, with more to follow soon. Much of this content is transferable to other GCSE specifications, and we will add specific courses for other exam boards, including Edexcel and OCR, shortly.
This course has been produced to the same exceptional standard as our core content, broken down into easy-to-digest nuggets (micro-lessons). Each nugget includes a short explainer video and a set of slides that learners can work through at their own pace, followed by a set of formative assessment questions which are automatically marked. Students can return to the learning material at any time while attempting the questions.
Each nugget has undergone a rigorous quality assurance process to ensure accessibility for learners and that it meets the highest standards. These nuggets also contain a large number of diagrams, images and animations, created by our in-house design team. These bespoke graphics help students visualise key concepts, such as weathering, erosion or specific fieldwork techniques.
Our courses provide specific and high-quality geography content, saving teachers time in creating their own resources
The brand new content has been meticulously designed by our specialist geography curriculum team of teachers who have over 50 years’ classroom expertise between them, led by Laura Hancock, an experienced Head of Geography. This wealth of expertise means the team is acutely aware of the challenges facing geography teachers and students, and the resources have been designed to meet those needs.
Our team understands first-hand how difficult it can be to deliver a content-heavy GCSE Geography course with tough constraints on allocated teaching time and the added complexity of finding time for fieldwork and revision. CENTURY can help support content delivery outside of timetabled lessons for units that are tricky to fit in. The assessment questions give real time data insights to teachers, who know straight away if a learner needs support, or a topic requires revisiting in class.
This bespoke content has been mapped directly to course specifications, to save your teachers time searching for or creating resources that adequately show complex processes. This includes good quality, up-to-date and relevant case studies with formative assessments. We have also developed reliable and simple ‘how-to’ videos demonstrating key skills, such as for fieldwork collection methods, sampling, describing data, or how to use and draw isoline and choropleth maps. Our design team has worked closely with our curriculum experts to create high quality and useful animations and diagrams that show complicated processes such as global atmospheric circulation and convection in the earth’s mantle.
Our content embeds geographical skills, aids revision and supports students to answer exam questions
Geographical skills have been interleaved and embedded throughout the course in new bespoke skills-based nuggets. This includes locational knowledge, OS maps, GIS, fieldwork scenarios, and graphical and numeracy questions. Examination-style questions are incorporated wherever possible, and we have included questions to support students with exam-specific skills such as precise descriptions of patterns as well as the knowledge recall questions that are so crucial.
Case Study and fieldwork nuggets ensure all aspects of the course are covered
Case studies are an important part of any geography course. Since schools can choose which case studies to focus on, we have created nuggets on the most common choices, (Nepal, Haiti & New Zealand earthquakes for example). Since the publication of Paper 1, we have received feedback from schools, requesting additional case studies within the UK Coastal Landscapes and Tropical Rainforests units. This feedback has been taken on board and we are now planning nuggets on these case studies to be added to the course very shortly.
To support schools using more local or lesser known case studies, we are also creating generic case study nuggets. These teach the general theory and knowledge behind case studies, giving students a solid foundation of knowledge and the ability to apply this to their own case study examples. Additionally, geographical investigations and fieldwork are crucial for the effective understanding of geography. Our geographical enquiry nuggets include specific fieldwork techniques for both physical and human investigations to support your school’s individual fieldwork plans as well as the ‘unseen fieldwork’ element of the examination.
Our AI identifies gaps in students’ learning from KS3 science and maths and recommends cross-curricular interventions
CENTURY nuggets are cross-referenced with other subjects, in particular science and maths, to ensure consistent language and explanations of key concepts across the platform. For example, nuggets explaining the enhanced greenhouse effect and pyramids of biomass have been created by the appropriate science subject experts.
Similarly, if students struggle with certain scientific concepts, they will be recommended appropriate and relevant science nuggets to aid their understanding. Additionally, CENTURY’s specialist maths teachers have designed bespoke nuggets relevant to geography on the use of data. This is really useful to ensure mathematical skills such as interquartile range are taught correctly and consistently.
Find out more about how CENTURY’s geography course can support your students here. Book a demo here.
