Geography

Geography Curriculum

Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources, and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. (The 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England)

Geography

Geography Statement of Intent

At Wombridge Primary School, geography education is fully inclusive for every child. Our aim is for all children to ‘know more and remember more’. We do this through our carefully sequenced curriculum. Knowledge within our curriculum is split into locational, place, human and physical, geographical skills, and field work. These are mapped out throughout the year groups to ensure progression and ultimately, knowledge building on knowledge. Furthermore, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity to understand the world around them, its environments, places near and far, and the processes that create and affect them.

Implementation:

We teach the national curriculum supported by clear progression of knowledge in the 4 forms of knowledge: location, place, human and physical, geographical skills, and field work. We have key concepts such as place, space, scale, physical processes, human processes that are taught explicitly throughout the year groups. We feel these are central to a pupil’s geographical education in structuring and supporting how people learn geography. Therefore, they are revisited to allow teachers to introduce new, more complex knowledge to deepen pupils understanding. We also believe that through repeating and recalling of the concepts, this is more likely to commit to the child’s long-term memory. Through our clear progression of knowledge and carefully thought-out concepts we believe this will aid children’s knowledge to be built on and deepen their understanding, therefore aiding in them knowing more and remembering more and ultimately being able to do more.

Impact

Pupil’s work in topic books, evidence a broad and balanced geography curriculum and demonstrate children’s acquisition of key knowledge relating to each of the identified national curriculum strands, as appropriate to each key stage; locational knowledge, place knowledge and human and physical geography. This is in addition to the development and application of key skills, supported by fieldwork.

As children progress throughout the school, they develop a deep knowledge, understanding and appreciation of their local area and its place within the wider geographical context. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

Assessing children’s understanding of theme linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught; assessment of pupil discussions about their learning; quizzes and use of Knowledge Organisers; pupil voice and annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.

Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS)

The EYFS is the bedrock of our curriculum and provides the opportunity for a child to begin to understand how they interact with their environment — and how the environment influences them.

In EYFS, children begin to develop their geographical knowledge by exploring features of our school. Maps and atlases are used to investigate different places as we begin to compare and contrast different environments.