Geography

Geography at St George's

Intent

At St George’s, we teach geography through a clearly structured and carefully sequenced curriculum to ensure that all pupils develop the knowledge and skills required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum by the end of each academic year. The curriculum is designed to provide children with a broad and deep understanding of the four key strands of geography: locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, and geographical skills and fieldwork.

Our curriculum builds progressively, developing pupils’ contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places and their understanding of the physical and human processes that shape the world. Children learn how these processes interact, bringing about variation and change over time. Through this approach, we aim to foster children’s curiosity and a lasting fascination with the world and its people.

The units we teach provide opportunities to investigate a wide range of places, alongside key physical and human processes. Lessons are designed to explicitly develop geographical vocabulary, map skills and the secure retention of geographical facts. Opportunities for consolidation, challenge and varied learning experiences are built in to ensure sustained interest and progress. By the end of each key stage, every child will have been taught in line with the expectations of the National Curriculum.

Implementation

We aim to promote a positive attitude to learning and maintain high expectations so that all children are supported to reach their full potential. In KS1, pupils begin by exploring their local area, using maps and identifying basic human and physical features. This develops into the use of maps to explore continents and oceans by Year 2, where children also begin to compare their local area with places beyond Europe and ask and answer simple geographical questions.

In KS2, map and fieldwork skills are further developed through the use of digital mapping, a wider range of symbols and keys, and more purposeful fieldwork opportunities. Geography is taught through a number of consistent approaches:

♦ Geography is taught in every year group from Nursery to Year 6. Learning is organised into blocks and taught on a half-termly rotation with history, allowing time for in-depth coverage of each subject. This approach supports pupils in developing secure knowledge and skills within each unit.

♦ Learning is sequenced so that children begin with themselves and their local area before expanding their understanding to the UK and then the wider world.

♦ Knowledge organisers are provided at the start of each unit to outline key knowledge, vocabulary and concepts. These support children in acquiring and retaining knowledge and are used as reference tools rather than assessment materials.

♦ Regular opportunities are built in to support pupils in knowing more and remembering more, including retrieval activities that revisit prior learning from previous lessons and units.

♦ At the start of each unit, prior knowledge is revisited and children are encouraged to share what they already know. KWL grids are used to capture what children know (K), what they want to know (W) and, at the end of the unit, what they have learned (L).

♦ Educational visits and visitors are used purposefully to enrich learning and strengthen children’s understanding of real-world geography.

♦ Self and peer assessment opportunities are used regularly to support reflection, identify misconceptions and inform future planning.

♦ High-quality, knowledge-rich displays linked to key questions are used to create an engaging and supportive learning environment.

Impact

The impact of our geography curriculum is that children enjoy learning geography and develop a secure and increasingly sophisticated understanding of the subject. Teachers have high expectations and pupils are able to demonstrate their learning clearly through their work.

Children use geographical vocabulary accurately and confidently, and understand the key strands of geography, including the Earth’s physical and human processes. They are able to make meaningful links between geography and other subjects such as history and science. Pupils develop strong enquiry skills and an inquisitive attitude towards the world and their place within it.

By the time they leave St George’s, children are able to collect, analyse and communicate geographical data, interpret a range of geographical sources and present information in a variety of ways. They develop an awareness of environmental responsibility and understand that their choices can have an impact on the future of the planet. All pupils can speak confidently about their geographical knowledge, skills and learning.

Knowledge Organisers

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