A-Level Geography

You will devel­op your research skills by tak­ing part in field­work. You will com­plete an indi­vid­ual field inves­ti­ga­tion as part of this course explor­ing your cho­sen top­ic. You will also be required to take part in a 4‑night field trip and a num­ber of field vis­its to help with your research devel­op­ment. In class you will inves­ti­gate case stud­ies, explore the for­ma­tion of and effects of glacia­tion. There will be prac­ti­cal activ­i­ties to sup­port your under­stand­ing of land­scape for­ma­tion as well as dis­cus­sions about human geog­ra­phy, data gath­er­ing and inves­ti­ga­tion of social depri­va­tion issues in the local­i­ty. There is also a course work require­ment which you will begin work on at the end of year 1.

The stan­dard require­ment for A Lev­els at Stam­ford Col­lege is 5 GCSEs at Grade 5/C or above as a min­i­mum for human­i­ties sub­jects and 6/B in maths for all sci­ence subjects.

Each A Lev­el sub­ject has its own addi­tion­al entry require­ments, please see below:

Min­i­mum Grade 5/C or above in a sci­ence based GCSE subject

We will review each appli­ca­tion on a case-by-case basis to ensure you get a place on the course most suit­able for you. We offer an online inter­view which will explain the A Lev­el pro­gramme and also allow for an infor­mal chat with the tutor for each sub­ject before an offer to study with us can be made to you.

Once enrolled one of the ways we make sure the course is right for you is through a very effec­tive ​‘6 weeks to suc­cess’ pro­gramme that oper­ates from the first day you start your course. This includes sup­port such as (but not lim­it­ed to):

• Allow­ing you to change sub­ject and course if you change your mind or find the course is not right for you in the first 6 weeks ‑sub­ject to availability 
• Mov­ing you between A‑Levels and a Lev­el 3 Diplo­ma if you are find­ing your cur­rent lev­el too hard — sub­ject to availability 
• One-to-one reviews with your aca­d­e­m­ic tutor to ensure you are pro­gress­ing and achiev­ing well

Our course enquiries and admis­sions team can be con­tact­ed at enquiries@​stamford.​ac.​uk should you have any fur­ther questions.

Dur­ing the two years of study, you will be reg­u­lar­ly assessed under test con­di­tions to prac­tise being able to under­stand and respond to the ques­tions asked in the cor­rect time allo­ca­tion so that you are ful­ly pre­pared for the final exams. There is an assess­ment cal­en­dar for A lev­els which includes timed assess­ment every 4 to 5 weeks. Feed­back gained from these assess­ments will help you to devel­op your skills, tar­get your revi­sion and where nec­es­sary enable us to pro­vide addi­tion­al sup­port. There will also be assessed coursework.

You will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to take part in a num­ber of field trips through­out the year and will also be required to take part in a 4‑night field trip and a num­ber of field visits. 

You will study 3 A Lev­el sub­jects, plus tuto­r­i­al and career devel­op­ment ses­sions. Each sub­ject has 6 hours per week con­tact time, with approx­i­mate­ly 4 hours of inde­pen­dent study. 

Unfor­tu­nate­ly we can­not accept stu­dents who only want to study a sin­gle A Lev­el sub­ject due to fund­ing limitations.

Exam­ple job roles in:

• Teach­ing
• Envi­ron­men­tal Health
• Water Man­age­ment Officer
• Town Plan­ner
• Con­ser­va­tion Officer

Study­ing fur­ther degrees in:

• Envi­ron­men­tal Planning
• Busi­ness
• Social Ser­vices
• Teach­ing

You will study the fol­low­ing units:

• Water and car­bon cycles 
• Land­scape sys­tems (includ­ing the study of dry­lands, coastal or glacial landscapes) 
• Chang­ing places and the con­nec­tions between peo­ple, the econ­o­my, soci­ety and the environment. 
• Glob­al systems 
• Glob­al governance