Teaching guide - Skills in Geography - Version 1 - 0 - January 2025

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Ivy

A teacher- and student-focused geographical skills guide for A-level Geography, designed to support instruction and assessment practice. It explains key skills from a geographical skills checklist in the specification order, while emphasizing embedded teaching across contexts. The guide uses assessment-style examples and shows how to apply each skill to fieldwork and figure-based questions. It also includes a structured contents overview and a Version 1.0 label dated January 2025.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages63

Reading Time2 h 39 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Contents

Section 1: Core skills

Base maps

Sketch maps

OS maps (at a variety of scales)

Diagrams

Field sketches

Photographs

Geospatial, geo-located and digital imagery (GIS)

Section 2: Cartographic skills

Atlas maps

Weather maps – including synoptic charts

Maps with located proportional symbols

Maps showing movement: Flow line, desire line and trip line maps

Choropleth maps (maps showing spatial patterns)

Isoline maps (maps showing spatial patterns)

Dot maps (maps showing spatial patterns)

Section 3: Graphical skills

Line graphs

Bar graphs

Scatter graphs

Pie charts and proportional divided circles

Triangular graphs

Graphs with logarithmic scales

Dispersion diagrams

Section 4: Statistical Skills

Measures of central tendency

Measures of dispersion

Spearman’s rank correlation

Chi-square test

Teaching guide: Skills in Geography Introduction As geographical skills are fundamental to succeed in A-level Geography, we’ve created this geographical skills guide to support and equip teachers and students. Complete with key information about each specific skill listed in the geographical skills checklist – our guide is designed for you to use with students. Examples illustrate what they may look like in an assessment setting and how to incorporate them into fieldwork. It covers the specification in the order listed and in some cases some skills are grouped together. The order is by no means prescriptive and geographical skills should be taught embedded into subject content and covered in different contexts. Version 1.0 January 2025 Contents You can use the title links to jump directly to the different sections of this guide. | Section | Page | | --- | --- | | Section 1: Core skills | 4 | | 1.1 Base maps | 4 | | 1.2 Sketch maps | 6 | | 1.3 OS maps (at a variety of scales) | 9 | | 1.4 Diagrams | 11 | | 1.5 Field sketches | 14 | | 1.6 Photographs | 16 | | 1.7 Geospatial, geo-located and digital imagery (GIS) | 18 | | Section 2: Cartographic skills | 21 | | 2.1 Atlas maps | 21 | | 2.2 Weather maps – including synoptic charts | 23 | | 2.3 Maps with located proportional symbols | 24 | | 2.4 Maps showing movement: Flow line, desire line and trip line maps | 26 | | 2.5 Choropleth maps (maps showing spatial patterns) | 27 | | 2.6 Isoline maps (maps showing spatial patterns) | 28 | | 2.7 Dot maps (maps showing spatial patterns) | 30 | | Section 3: Graphical skills | 31 | | 3.1 Line graphs (simple, comparative, compound and divergent) | 31 | | 3.2 Bar graphs (simple, comparative, compound and divergent) | 35 | | 3.3 Scatter graphs (and the use of best fit line) | 38 | | 3.4 Pie charts and proportional divided circles | 40 | | 3.5 Triangular graphs | 42 | | Section | Page | | --- | --- | | 3.6 Graphs with logarithmic scales | 46 | | 3.7 Dispersion diagrams | 47 | | Section 4: Statistical Skills | 48 | | 4.1 Measures of central tendency – mean, mode and median | 48 | | 4.2 Measures of dispersion – range and inter-quartile range | 50 | | 4.3 Measures of dispersion – standard deviation | 54 | | 4.4 Spearman’s rank correlation (inferential and relational statistics – to include application of significance tests) | 56 | | 4.5 Chi-square test (inferential and relational statistics – to include application of significance tests) | 60 | Section 1: Core skills 1.1 Base maps What is a base map? A base map is a reference map on which geographical information is displayed. A wide variety of maps can be used, and at different scales. The example in Figure 1 shows a base map with the track of a hurricane overlaid. A useful source of base maps for A-level students is the Ordnance Survey (OS), the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The OS produces digital and paper maps at various scales, which can be used for displaying geographical information. Useful weblinks • Ordnance Survey YouTube video channel: Learn how to map read with Steve Backshall and Ordnance Survey • Street Map website: This allows free access to view sections of OS maps at 1:50 000 and 1:25 000 scales Streetmap-Maps and directions for the whole of Great Britain • Basic map skills revision website: Mapping tools; Maps and symbols; Direction, scale, distance and height; Grid references. Mapping tools-OS map skills-KS3 Geography (Environment and society) Revision-BBC Bitesize Example As part of A-level Paper 1, Section C, 2020, a question used Figure 1, the track of Hurricane Michael, and data related to the intensity and timescale of the event. How to comment on the Figure 1 data relating to the base map. 1. Use points of the compass (north, south, east and west) . 2. Refer to the map underlying the geographical information, for example is the data over ocean or land? 3. Use the scale line. 4. Comment on latitude and longitude

FAQs

What is the purpose of this geographical skills guide?

It supports and equips teachers and students for A-level Geography by covering the key skills listed in the geographical skills checklist and showing how to use them with learners.

How should geographical skills be taught according to the guide?

Skills should be taught embedded into subject content and covered in different contexts; the specification order is not prescriptive for teaching.

What kinds of examples does the guide include?

It includes examples illustrating what skills may look like in an assessment setting and how they can be incorporated into fieldwork, such as commentary on base map figure data.

Oct 20, 2026

Uploaded by Ivy