At St Mary’s, Geography’s fundamental role lies in helping children to understand the world, its environments and places near and far, and the processes that create and affect them. It encourages a holistic appreciation of how the world works and of the interconnections between concepts such as scale, community, cultural diversity, interdependence and sustainability. We believe that a high quality, engaging and enriching Geography curriculum is key to supporting our children in becoming open-minded, compassionate and tolerant global citizens, who have an appreciation of other cultures and ways of life.

Intent

Our Geography curriculum supports all children in developing a deep and meaningful understanding of the world they live in.  It should spark a lifelong curiosity and appreciation of places and people they have never experienced before and raise big questions about the local and international environment and its future.

As our children navigate on through their learning journey from EYFS to Year 4, and beyond, we strive to embed in them a range of progressive and transferable skills that they will build upon through their study of different and interesting topics.  The areas of study that we have carefully selected, enhance our children’s understanding of their local, national and global identity.  Our children will gain confidence in identifying and explaining our Earth’s key physical and human processes and use geographical enquiry, atlases and maps efficiently to locate, describe and compare places within their local area and those in the wider world.

Our children take part in planned local fieldwork activities in order to investigate and experience geographical processes and local environmental concerns first hand.  Not only does this develop important geographical skills, it creates invaluable opportunities for our children to investigate and follow their own lines of enquiry and subsequently express, compare and debate their ideas respectfully with their peers in the classroom.  

Implementation

Geography follows a two-year cycle and is taught in a curriculum block each term in KS1 and KS2.  In EYFS, children develop their knowledge and understanding of the world. Topics have been selected and planned, in line with the National Curriculum, in order that key geographical skills and knowledge can be revisited and built upon throughout the children’s time at our school. This ensures that each child can achieve depth and confidence in each Geography objective.

At the beginning of each Geography lesson, children are encouraged to share what they know already about a given topic and are given opportunities to express what they would like to subsequently find out.  This crucial content is revisted to give children every opportunity to remember key knowledge. It also ensures that lessons are relevant to the context of the class, and also makes teachers aware of the different starting points for each child.  Activities are chosen carefully and the teacher ensures that every child can access the key learning objective and the skills required for each lesson, and that an appropriate level of challenge is provided for each child.  Lessons are planned to develop oracy skills, as well as written skills. Children are provided with opportunities to research using: technology, atlases, other topic books and a range of digital and physical maps. 

Fieldwork opportunities are planned into topics, so that our children are able to learn Geography in a hands-on way and we utilise the physical geographical features of our local area effectively – to ensure this learning and these experiences stay with them for life. 

Impact

Through the effective planning and teaching of an enriching and stimulating Geography curriculum, our pupils are able to leave Year 4 equipped with the necessary geographical skills and knowledge that will support them throughout the rest of their learning journey and later in life, as an adult in the wider world. By year 4, children will ask and respond to their own questions by analysing evidence (in the form of photos, pictures, maps, satellite images, ICT etc) to draw conclusions.  They will have a strong awareness of key environmental and humanitarian issues and a broad understanding of other cultures and customs different to their own.  This supports them to become the open-minded, compassionate and tolerant global citizens that we strive for them to be.

Geography Policy

Geography Vocabulary List

Geography Progression of Skills