This page outlines a possible pathway for delivering the course over the 2 year (5 term period). It provides a simple route through for unit timings, IA and internal assessment.

Course Delivery

The delivery of the course is dependent on so many different factors relating to individual schools. Some schools require SL to be taught alongside HL whilst other schools allow for its separation.  The amount of time provided for the course may vary from 3-5 hours depending on the school. Some schools favour a block of classroom led IA time and others provide more limited class time and place an emphasis on independent home based planning. For these reasons I am reluctant to set out a precise schedule for teachers. However you can find a printable scheme for course delivery further down in this page. This scheme suggests a logical pathway through course based on the possibility of either two teachers delivering the course with a HL/SL split or for one teacher delivering the full course.

My own school has a SL/HL set up with 2.5 hours for SL a week and 4.5 hours for HL a week. However as a department we prefer  all students both SL & HL, are tutored by two teachers. This can be achieved by splitting the HL core teaching across two teachers across the two years as follows:

If you prefer to have SL delivered entirely by one teacher and then have a second teacher deliver the HL course elements a SL/HL teacher split can be achieved as set out in the table below. A more detailed outline and PDF version and images can be found further in the page.

Fieldwork and IA Rationale

The exact timing of the IA will depend on how you wish to organize the fieldwork component of the course as well as your own school requirements. My preference is to lead department organized fieldwork days. I offer the students a choice of one physical and one human environment but all students participate in both days and then choose. Preferably, the fieldwork should be based around a unit that you deliver but this is not essential and by choosing a different theme to enrich the curriculum you can actually expand on their geographical knowledge and understanding of Geography. My department does this with excellent results year on year.

For our students, the fieldwork methodology is centrally planned and it is locally organized to allow individual students the opportunity to revisit sites, expand on their methodology and develop more bespoke hypotheses.

My preference is to complete the IA in year 12. We begin the process in September/October time. This way the students experience a team building learning experience which tends to gel the group as well as integrating new students. The timing of the write-up occurs over an extended period of time rather than a shorter more intensive period.The deadline follows the second term break. This way the students can balance their commitment to the IA with the broader IB demands. My students always appreciate getting the IA out of the way in the first year when so many pressures hit them in the second year.

I deliver the teaching and feedback in stages, introducing the IA structure, step by step. Students receive feedback once after each step, they make their corrections and then move on. This use of staged write-ups and feedback allows flexibility for the students (much needed at IB) and maintains a clear focus and quality of work. Feedback is only (and must only) be given once.

To access the rest of the page an detailed out of the course delivery follow this link