Preparing for Geography Curriculum and Assessment Reform
Helping schools and education organisations understand emerging proposals and prepare for the changes ahead.
The Curriculum and Assessment Review is shaping the future direction of education in England. Below, I explore what has been confirmed so far, the anticipated reform timeline and some of the potential implications for Geography—while recognising that the detail will become clearer when the draft curriculum and subject content are published for consultation.
Background to the Curriculum and Assessment Review
The Curriculum and Assessment Review was commissioned by the Government in July 2024 and led by Professor Becky Francis CBE. It examined the curriculum, assessment and qualifications system in England for learners aged 5 to 19.
The Review was asked to build on the strengths of the existing system while considering how it could better balance ambition, excellence, relevance, flexibility and inclusivity. Its work drew on research, consultation with subject and sector experts, and more than 7,000 responses to its public call for evidence.
The final report was published in November 2025, alongside the Government’s response. Rather than proposing wholesale reform, it recommended retaining the broad architecture of subjects, key stages and qualifications while making carefully targeted changes.
The Government has committed to publishing the final revised National Curriculum in spring 2027, ready for first teaching from September 2028. Reformed GCSEs will follow from 2029 onwards. The timeline below sets out from what we know so far, the anticipated stages of reform, from public consultation to the introduction of revised curricula and qualifications.
What we know so far.
Key themes emerging from the final report and Government repsonse
Curriculum coherence and depth
Refine and update content to reduce unnecessary repetition, strengthen progression and allow deeper understanding of key geographical concepts, processes and interconnections.
Climate and Sustainability
Strengthen climate literacy and understanding of sustainability through a coherent curriculum connecting physical and human geography.
Disciplinary Geography
Make disciplinary knowledge more explicit, particularly at Key Stage 3, including geographical enquiry, spatial reasoning, use of evidence and digital tools.
Fieldwork and enquiry
Clarify and strengthen fieldwork requirements, integrating fieldwork more clearly with geographical knowledge, skills and disciplinary enquiry while keeping provision proportionate and inclusive.
Thinking Ahead
Although the direction of reform is becoming clearer, much of the detail is not yet known. Until the draft Programme of Study and GCSE subject content are published for consultation it would be premature for departments to begin rewriting schemes of learning in response to requirements they have not yet seen.
However this does not mean that departments need to wait before thinking ahead. The period before consultation provides an opportunity to step back and consider the purpose, ambition and coherence of the existing Geography curriculum. Rather than trying to predict the precise content of future requirements, departments can start to examine how effectively their current curriculum builds geographical knowledge, develops disciplinary thinking and enables pupils to make sense of an increasingly complex world.
Questions to begin considering
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What should every pupil know, understand and be able to do by the end of Key Stage 3?
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How does geographical knowledge currently build and connect across units and years?
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Where is progression in geographical thinking made explicit?
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How effectively are substantive and disciplinary knowledge brought together?
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How are climate change and sustainability developed across your current curriculum?
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How successfully are fieldwork, enquiry and digital geographical tools currently integrated?
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Where is there currently unnecessary repetition, fragmentation or insufficient depth in your curriculum?
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Does your Key Stage 3 have its own intellectual purpose, rather than functioning principally as preparation for GCSE?
Thinking about these questions now will help your department respond to the public consultation and later to the confirmed Key Stage 3 curriculum a clearer understanding of both the curriculum they currently have and the geographical education they ultimately want to provide.
“KS3 should be the intellectual powerhouse of the secondary school.”
— Mary Myatt, KS3: The Ambitious Years (2026)
A sliding-doors moment for Key Stage 3
The revised National Curriculum could represent a genuine sliding-doors moment for Key Stage 3 Geography.
One response would be to compare the existing curriculum with the new Programme of Study and make the changes needed to meet its requirements. Much of what departments already teach will remain valuable; this is not about discarding established strengths simply for the sake of change.
However, I would argue that if the process begins and ends with simply looking to fit existing units around the revised requirements, an important opportunity could be missed. Such an approach could also lose sight of the Review’s wider intentions: to deepen pupils’ understanding of key geographical concepts, strengthen progression and disciplinary knowledge, remove unnecessary repetition and create greater coherence across the curriculum. Instead, departments should try and use the opportunity to step back and consider the geographical education they ultimately want to provide. What should pupils know, understand and be able to do by the end of Key Stage 3? How should their geographical thinking develop? How should knowledge connect and build across units and years?
This requires departments to review the curriculum as a coherent whole—its purpose, content, sequencing, progression and connections—before deciding how individual units should change. Much of the existing curriculum may remain, but it should be retained because it contributes to that wider vision, rather than simply because it has always been taught.
The revised National Curriculum should therefore be seen not only as something to implement, but as an opportunity to reconsider what an ambitious, coherent and genuinely geographical Key Stage 3 curriculum could be.
Having our say
The publication of the draft Programme of Study and revised GCSE subject content in Autumn 2026 will provide an important opportunity for Geography teachers, subject leaders and the wider subject community to examine the proposals carefully and contribute to what comes next.
Engaging at this stage really matters because it is not the exam boards that independently determine what GCSE Geography should contain or how it should be assessed. The Department for Education establishes the subject content that all specifications must cover, while Ofqual sets the assessment objectives and wider regulatory requirements. Exam boards then develop their individual specifications and assessments within those parameters.
BBy the time a draft specification is published, many of the most significant decisions will already have been made. If we want future Geography qualifications to be ambitious, coherent, manageable and true to our discipline, it is important to engage with the subject content and assessment arrangements on which they will be built.
The consultation will also provide an opportunity to consider whether the proposals achieve the Review’s wider intentions: strengthening geographical knowledge and disciplinary understanding, improving progression and coherence, reducing unnecessary repetition, and giving appropriate attention to climate change, sustainability, fieldwork and geographical enquiry.
It will also allow us to consider the practical consequences for schools: whether the breadth and depth of content are manageable, whether the assessment objectives reflect what matters in Geography, and whether the resulting curriculum will provide a rich and worthwhile geographical education for all pupils.
This is the stage at which we as the geography subject community has the greatest opportunity to influence the foundations of the new curriculum and qualifications so it is really important that we don't just wait to respond to the specifications subsequently built upon them.
