The Curriculum and Assessment Review: key insights and next steps for Geography teachers

Breadth and Depth of Content

The CAR final report proposes light-touch refinements to remove repetition and update content to support greater use of contemporary, local and representative case studies and contexts. The review highlights that ‘some GCSE subject content in Geography is overly dense and repetitive’. We believe: 

• The overall volume of prescribed content could be reduced to allow deeper understanding of key concepts underpinning 21st contemporary challenges. 
  
  
• Introducing a proportion of non-core content, as seen at A level, would give teachers greater flexibility to tailor learning to student interests and local and representative case studies and contexts.  
   

Climate Change and Sustainability

We strongly support the recommendation to embed climate education more explicitly.  

• We believe the scope of study within the DfE subject content should explicitly reference climate change and sustainability as core concepts to support progression from Key Stage 3 and beyond into A level.  
  
  
• One of the benefits of reviewing the GCSE subject content would be the opportunity to provide a balanced approach across causes, consequences, and solutions of climate change and how human agency can lead to positive solutions both in the UK and internationally. 
   

Cultural Responsiveness and Representation

The CAR report highlights the need for contemporary and local case studies, which is welcome. We believe this could be best achieved by reducing the prescribed breadth of content to allow deeper exploration into local and representative case studies and contexts
 

Fieldwork

We believe that clear fieldwork requirements are key to showing why fieldwork matters. Strengthening these expectations ensures students experience Geography as it should be – hands-on, relevant, and engaging. We encourage further review of the assessment of fieldwork to ensure it measures understanding of students’ own fieldwork. This would improve student and local relevance, accessibility of fieldwork and integration with content – showing how it connects to other geographical skills and knowledge. 
 

Timeline for reform 

The government’s response to the CAR report contains the following timeline for future reform: 

Once it's confirmed which phases GCSE and A level Geography fall into for redevelopment, we'll share this with you. 

Next steps 

We're committed to improving GCSE Geography, and look forward to engaging with teachers, learners and other organisations to make this a reality. Join the conversation using the form below, and we’ll keep you updated with next steps and opportunities to get involved and share your views.