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Geography

Geography Curriculum at St Eanswythe’s

Rationale and National Curriculum Coverage

Taken from the National Curriculum in England:

‘Purpose of study:

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.’

Rationale:

Geography is the study of physical and human environment through the processes, which shape it and the people who live in it. It is a crucial subject to help children to understand their links with the effects on, the natural world and their links with other people in the wider world. It provides a key context in which to involve pupils with environmental sustainability and help them to grow up as responsible citizens.

This policy has been developed with the geographical site and situation of the school in mind. Our catchment area for pupils is wide so we encompass this by the end of Key Stage 2 as our local area. We follow the National Curriculum for History. We use the Primary Knowledge Curriculum (PKC) scheme to support our teaching of Geography.

Intent:

The PKC Geography curriculum is knowledge rich. This means the knowledge children will gain has been carefully specified, ordered coherently and builds over time. As our children work through the geography curriculum they will know more, understand more about their local area, the UK, Europe and the World around them. A good geographical understanding relies on firm foundations of knowledge and skills. The skills our curriculum develops, like the knowledge, are specified, ordered coherently and progress over time. This curriculum structure helps pupils to deepen their understanding of physical and human geographical processes, fostering curiosity and fascination for the world we live in.

Implementation:

Conceptual understanding is at the heart of our curriculum. Children will learn about key geographical concepts such as place, space, the environment and interconnection. Over time, working through an essential process of elaboration, children will add to their conceptual understanding with many examples of geographical knowledge in context. Children will become more skilled at answering questions such as; what is it like to live in this place? What are the challenges of this environment? How have people changed this landscape over time? Children will gain an understanding of what geographers do, what they look for and what they may say about a place.

In Years 1-5, our geography curriculum includes a unit called ‘Spatial Sense’ unit that explicitly teaches geographical skills such as locating places on a map, positioning items on a map, using symbols in a key, interpreting scale, reading climate graphs, identifying locations using co-ordinates, interpreting population data, identifying elevation on relief maps and more. The spatial sense units build on prior knowledge before moving children on as the level of challenges increases from year to year. In Key Stage One the Spatial Sense units require children to undertake fieldwork and use observational skills to study the geography of their school and the surrounding environment. In Year 5 children will study a further unit on local geography where they undertake fieldwork to observe, record and present the human and physical features in the local area, focussing on an issue that the local area faces. The aim of the spatial sense units is to build children’s geographical literacy so that they are able to use an atlas, maps and geographical data with ease to answer questions they may have about the world.

Every year children will study at least one unit of British geography. As with the rest of the geography curriculum, children’s knowledge and understanding of British geography builds incrementally from year to year. In years two, three and four, children will study units of European geography that introduce regions of Europe, climate, trade, industry, landmarks, physical features and contrasting environments. Children will interpret a range of geographical information including maps, diagrams and climate graphs.

Alongside their study of the UK and Europe, children will extend their knowledge beyond these regions to study world geography. Applying their knowledge and understanding of the globe, latitude, longitude, the hemispheres and time zones, children will describe and understand physical geography of countries and continents including biomes, vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes. They will consider a range of human geographical features such as settlements, land use, trade links and natural resources.

The local area is utilised to achieve the desired outcomes, with opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice. This begins in Year R where pupils have multiple trips in our locality. In Folkestone we are very lucky to have the seaside to explore with its changing coastline and so visits to the beach and the sands are an excellent aid to the children’s learning. Fieldwork is paramount to learning. We encourage trips in all classes to reinforce the children’s learning. Our trips have included; various locations in Folkestone, London, Kew Gardens, Dover Castle and Walmer Castle, just to name a few.

Impact:

We aim for our pupils to be confident geographers who are able to discuss their learning and make links where appropriate between both human and physical geography to explain processes that impact the world around us.

Outcomes in geography books evidence a broad and balanced geography curriculum and demonstrate children’s acquisition of identified key knowledge. Staff conduct book looks and speak to pupils to ensure that the progression of knowledge, vocabulary and skills is there both within the year and across year groups. CPD sessions in staff meetings are also held over the course of the year to address any areas for further development.

Pupils have a quiz at the end of each unit, recorded in the back of books, which serves to assess pupils’ knowledge and understanding. Staff will then use these outcomes in future starters or future units of geography to address any misunderstandings. Anything beyond that will be looked at by the Geography Lead to decide whether or not adjustments to the curriculum need to be implemented to ensure pupils remember and understand the content.

Our geography curriculum equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people and environments. We have seen that arming children with powerful knowledge about the world around them helps them to develop a love for the subject of geography, and also recognise their own role in becoming a responsible global citizen. St Eanswythe’s pledge is for all our children to get excited about geography and thrive on the knowledge they hold. To give the children the tools they need to take along on their learning journey not just through primary school but throughout their lives.