Sociology Roadmaps represent a simple, visual, way to show students “the journey” (they actually seem to be called Sociology Journeys by a great many schools and colleges) they are about to undertake in KS4 (GCSE) Sociology.
The Roadmaps I’ve found seem to suggest there’s no general, agreed, content displayed on the maps, outside of broadly indicating the topics students will be studying over their two-year course. While some stick more-or-less to the basics of indicating general content or topics, others are a little more adventurous in what they try to display: some, for example, indicate when and how students will be tested in the course of “their journey”.
Precisely how useful these Roadmaps actually prove to be is probably not something that’s likely to be quantified any time soon, but qualitatively I think they have a place in the curriculum.
What that place might actually be I’m not altogether sure, but on the basis that I’m pretty certain most teachers start GCSE Sociology by either giving their students a copy of the Specification or at the very least running through some edited low highlights a colourful visual can’t hurt.
What might hurt is having to make the Maps. This is why I’ve gathered a few examples you might be able to use as is (all but one cover the AQA Specification) or as inspiration – to give you a few ideas about how to construct your own personal Roadmap for your students.
The first list of Roadmaps covers AQA KS4:
Whitworth Community High School
Tudor Grange Academy: Alternatively these are available as 5 individual A4 Maps:
A second list covers Roadmaps that show the Sociology Journey from KS4 through KS5:
Tuxford Academy (covers Eduqas GCSE and OCR KS5)
PowerPoint Templates
I’ve added a couple of Roadmap templates to the list if that’s the road you want to take. These are PowerPoint Presentations that can be easily amended to your own tastes – although creating a Roadmap in PowerPoint from scratch isn’t that difficult once you know what you want to include.