Geography is a valued part of our broad and balanced curriculum which provides our pupils with a purposeful platform for exploring, appreciating and understanding our world and how it has evolved. Clear knowledge and skills of the Geography curriculum are carefully mapped out across the school and are sequentially planned and are learned, revisited and built upon - learned, unlearned and relearned - creating a coherent global understanding for our pupils.
Teaching key concepts such as place, space, scale, environment and interconnections and provide children with opportunities for field world and developing key geographical skills, as well as inspiring a love of learning in Geography. Along with the key concepts, subject specific vocabulary is taught to enable pupils to communicate effectively.
The Geography curriculum is planned to develop in pupils a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it, and knowledge and understanding of key concepts are developed and deepened as children grow.
For example, as pupils progress through the primary age range, knowledge develops from local geography, to recalling the countries of the UK, to cities in England, to capital cities of the world, to physical and human landmarks of the different continents. Additionally, progression is demonstrated from comparative studies in Y1 within the UK, to a nearby and far away city in Y2, to our own and a faraway continent in Y3. In Key Stage 2 opportunities arise to deepen understanding of the skills and knowledge to understanding climate change both locally and nationally where relevant issues important to our community and children are explored.
The design of the Geography curriculum enables the children to understand their home, and how they can protect, preserve and develop their immediate surroundings for future generations as those who are custodians of God's creation.
Our Geography curriculum is taught through a clearly sequenced curriculum, where learning is carefully mapped from EYFS to Y6 to ensure that the understanding of key concepts is developed in each year.
The geography Long Term Plan maps out the teaching sequence for each year group, demonstrating progression through the key concepts that have been identified by leaders through the design of the curriculum. Our curriculum focuses on developing the skills necessary for children to understand the changes of the world around them and the impact that they have on the world. Taught as an independent subject, the progressive curriculum builds up key knowledge and skills as pupils move though the primary curriculum.
It is planned to ensure a rich education in which pupils develop a depth of understanding and a broad range of knowledge, allowing them to manipulate and make links across concepts and topics. Knowledge is taught to be remembered, stored in long-term memory and developed and use of high-quality knowledge organisers, which are regularly reviewed, enable children to use retrieval strategies to ensure that knowledge is remembered.. The curriculum is organised in a way which continuously builds and revisits knowledge so that pupils are able to apply generalisations to further understand the world around them. A strength of our geography curriculum is that it unites natural sciences and social sciences together as one discipline. This interdependence is integral for children to understand and see the complexity of geography.
Geography is an essential part of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage as it is incorporated in everyday learning through Understanding of the World. The geographical aspects of the children's work relate to the objectives set out in the early learning goals (ELGs).
In KS1, the children will begin by learning about their local environment and how place and space is used. They will be able to name and locate continents and oceans of the world as well as identifying the countries that make up the United Kingdom and their capital cities. Children in key stage one will also begin to identify human and physical locations by looking at natural and man-made items in their local area.
In KS2, children will develop locational and place knowledge by using maps, atlases and digital media such as google earth to name and locate counties, countries and cities around the world. They will use fieldwork and skills to collect and analyse data as well as looking closely at physical and human processes such as urbanisation, volcanoes, earthquakes and global warming.
Lessons will be delivered weekly by class teachers. Learning will be reviewed regularly with the use of retrieval practice based around practical tasks and challenges, in order to assess and address gaps in knowledge which could hinder children's progression.
Individual lessons include the preparation of high-quality resources. Teachers ensure that their planning guides the acquisition and retention of new learning through a range of strategies rooted in cognitive science such as the use of retrieval practice.
Our Geography curriculum enables our pupils to develop an appreciation and understanding of the lives, experiences and actions of people around the world and to think critically and ask key questions in their roles as global citizens.
The sequenced learning challenges and engages children to understand more about the world around them, inspiring in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. This understanding allows them to have the cultural capital and enrichment opportunities to enable them to become well-informed geographers with the potential to be cartographers, town planners, conservationists, meteorologist, marine biologist or weather forecasters.
By the end of KS2, children will have learned the knowledge, concepts and skills laid out and will be prepared for the next stage in their education. The curriculum is coherent and sequential and builds on prior learning with frequent opportunities for practical application of knowledge and skills through project and field work. Frequent self-assessment and teacher reviews show that pupils are able to recall and apply the taught content, learning more and remembering more.
Our curriculum is focused around the following key concepts of Geography:
