SECONDARY LEVEL GEOGRAPHY
At this point I must confess that none of my children has thus far progressed onto a GCSE in geography. None was sufficiently interested to carry on, we didn't find the material very inspiring, and the textbooks did not seem of a very high standard. If anyone has successfully taken this subject at GCSE level do please write in and make some suggestions. The home-ed exams wiki has some information on GCSE level geography and would be a good place to start. The textbook Essential Mapwork Skills by Ross is highly recommended for GCSE level.
One area which I know some Catholic parents have found tricky is that of human geography, which can become controversial once you reach GCSE level due in part to the focus on population control. In each of the textbooks I've looked at, the first chapter is on population control, with stimulus questions such as 'Why isn't contraception universally available?' and pictures contrasting a pretty Swedish girl (an only child who has so many opportunities because her parents limited themselves to one child) with a poor young Indian man (who had aspirations to be a doctor but had to leave school at 14 to support all his siblings). Not 'loaded' questions at all, perish the thought! Some go into detail about the need for easier access to contraceptives in developing countries and touch on the issue of 'reproductive health' as it is euphemistically called. Of course it is a good idea to deal with these issues and to offer alternative viewpoints, but you'll have to your own research for that - you won't find it in a GCSE geography textbook!
At this point I must confess that none of my children has thus far progressed onto a GCSE in geography. None was sufficiently interested to carry on, we didn't find the material very inspiring, and the textbooks did not seem of a very high standard. If anyone has successfully taken this subject at GCSE level do please write in and make some suggestions. The home-ed exams wiki has some information on GCSE level geography and would be a good place to start. The textbook Essential Mapwork Skills by Ross is highly recommended for GCSE level.
One area which I know some Catholic parents have found tricky is that of human geography, which can become controversial once you reach GCSE level due in part to the focus on population control. In each of the textbooks I've looked at, the first chapter is on population control, with stimulus questions such as 'Why isn't contraception universally available?' and pictures contrasting a pretty Swedish girl (an only child who has so many opportunities because her parents limited themselves to one child) with a poor young Indian man (who had aspirations to be a doctor but had to leave school at 14 to support all his siblings). Not 'loaded' questions at all, perish the thought! Some go into detail about the need for easier access to contraceptives in developing countries and touch on the issue of 'reproductive health' as it is euphemistically called. Of course it is a good idea to deal with these issues and to offer alternative viewpoints, but you'll have to your own research for that - you won't find it in a GCSE geography textbook!