Geography

Geography Statement of Intent: 

At St. Paul’s C. E. Primary School, we believe that Geography is an essential part of the curriculum, which provides a means of exploring, appreciating and understanding of the world in which we live and how it has evolved. We aim to deliver high quality geography teaching, using the National Curriculum, that offers our children the foundations for a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. We will enable children to develop knowledge and progressive skills, which are transferable to other curriculum areas and which will be used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

We aim to inspire a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people, which will remain with them for the rest of their lives and promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. We intend to provide children the chance to use and develop their skills outside of the classroom on local visits, residential visits and field trips. Finally, we believe that it is essential to inspire a caring attitude towards the environment, living things and to encourage appreciation for the world we live in.

Implementation:

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in geography, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Geography is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. In order for children at St. Paul’s C. E. Primary to know more and remember more in each area of geography studied, our lessons are structured so that prior learning is always considered and opportunities for revision and retrieval of essential knowledge are built into lessons. Lessons start by revisiting the previous learning, connecting knowledge throughout different year groups in order to smoothly link children’s learning. Retrieval practice, such as quizzes, also provide great opportunities to help make the key knowledge stick.

This all allows for revision to become part of good practice and ultimately helps build a depth to children’s geographical understanding. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lessons help children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge. Revision and introduction of key vocabulary is built into each lesson. This vocabulary is then included in display materials to ensure that children are allowed opportunities to repeat and revise this knowledge, providing children with scaffolding that supports them to retain new facts and vocabulary in their long-term memory.

Geography is taught in Reception as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. We relate the geographical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Years curriculum which underpin the planning for children aged three to five. Geography makes a significant contribution to the ELG objectives of developing a child’s understanding of the world through activities such as finding out about different places, the changing seasons and investigating our locality.

During Key Stage 1, pupils investigate their local area and a contrasting area in the United Kingdom or abroad, finding out about the environment in both areas and the people who live there. They also begin to learn about the wider world. They carry out geographical enquiry inside and outside the classroom. In doing this, they ask geographical questions about people, places and environments, and use geographical skills and resources, such as maps and photographs.

During Key Stage 2, pupils investigate a variety of people, places and environments in the United Kingdom and abroad, and start to make links between different places in the world. They find out how people affect the environment and how they are affected by it. Pupils carry out geographical enquiry inside and outside the classroom. In doing this, they ask geographical questions, and use geographical skills and resources, such as maps, atlases, aerial photographs and ICT. Children will develop geographical enquiry skills, including asking geographical questions, collecting and recording information and identifying different views. They will acquire the appropriate practical skills associated with Geography, including using suitable vocabulary, fieldwork techniques and maps, plans and atlases. Pupils will use secondary sources of information with accuracy, including aerial photographs, satellite images. As well as making its own distinctive contribution to the school curriculum, geography contributes to the wider aims of primary education. Teachers will ensure that links between subjects are maximised.

Statement of Impact:

The impact will be seen across the school with an increase in the profile of geography and the visibility of progression in the geography curriculum.

The learning environments across the school will be more consistent - with geographical vocabulary displayed, spoken and used by all learners. Whole-school and parental engagement will be improved through the use of geography-specific home learning tasks and opportunities suggested in lessons and overviews for wider learning.

We want to ensure that geography is loved by teachers and pupils across school, therefore encouraging them to want to continue building on this wealth of geographical knowledge and understanding, now and in the future. Progression across the school can also be measured through key questioning skills built into lessons, child-led assessment (such as success criteria grids, mind mapping sticky knowledge) and low-stakes assessment (such as retrieval quizzes and summative assessments), all of which inform and target next steps in learning.