Geography

Geography at Findern Primary School

Our Intent

We aim to develop children’s awareness of the world they live in starting with the location of their own home and country then expanding this to other countries, continents and oceans. We aim to encourage an appreciation of diversity and difference as the children compare their own environments, cultures and communities with very contrasting ones around the world. One of our major focuses is on the environment. We intend to inspire an appreciation and responsibility for the environment as well as an awareness of the environment. Being aware of environmental and climatic changes, patterns and concerns is a focus as the children progress through school. We aim to educate the children about current projects to protect the environment and teach them about the simple steps they can take to help in their own communities.

Implementation

The curriculum is led and overseen by the Geography lead. As Geography lead a regular programme of monitoring, evaluation and review and the celebration of good practice will contribute to the ongoing commitment to evolve and improve further.  

The teaching, learning and sequencing of the Geography curriculum follows: 

•          In EYFS, the Geographical skills will focus on differences in relation to places, their own environment and how environments may vary from one another. EYFS will understand how the environment is influenced by human activity and how the community help to maintain the area they live in. EYFS will observe the changing seasons and read simple treasure hunt maps.

•          In KS1, the Geographical skills will focus on place knowledge within the UK and world knowledge to locate the continents and oceans.  KS1 will use the terminology of hemisphere and NESW. KS1 will focus on weather patterns locally and globally by exploring cold and hot places. By the end of KS1, children will be able to notice the human and physical features of their local area and sketch maps from fieldwork and compare new and old maps of the local area.

•          In KS2, the Geographical skills build upon the global knowledge gained in KS1 and KS2 focus on specific continents including North America, Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. KS2 children will be using location terminology including: longitude, latitude, topic, equator. KS2 expand their understanding of human and physical features to the global environment. KS2 children will study: mountains, volcanoes, land use, rainforests and water. KS2 will explore the climatic changes of the planet and the impacts this has upon people and the environments studied. KS2 fieldwork skills include observation, recording data and drawing maps using keys and contours. By the end of KS2, children will apply the skills learnt to develop their own plans for the development of the local area. Pupils will consider the local land use, weather patterns, water courses and climate change to create their own plans.

•          The progression of skills is set out in order to build and develop: global awareness and locational terminology, an understanding of human and physical features of global and local environments, geographical terminology and fieldwork and map skills.

•          Lessons will develop long term memory by allowing for repetition of learning within the year and year on year. For example, climate, locational terminology and map reading are areas and skills which are built upon in each year group. 

•          The use of knowledge organisers are used to aid teachers in planning their knowledge and skills and students in understanding the expectations by the end of the unit. 

•          Vocabulary is taught within the unit and reinforced throughout the year this key vocabulary is displayed within classrooms.

Impact

We will assess the impact of our Geography curriculum through formative and summative assessments. We are looking to find out whether children have built upon their learning from previous years and if they have developed their appreciation and understanding of the world. For our formative assessment we will ask children to feedback in lessons, peer review and we will share learning outcomes and expectations. Our summative assessments to measure the impact will include sharing book work, displays and lesson overviews or observations. We will also use questioning with the children to gain an understanding of what they have learnt and how past learning enabled them to tackle each topic.