Geography

The Curriculum Gift that we give to our children...

To understand our planet, how we inhabit it and our effect on it and to talk to people who have lived and grown-up in different parts of the world. To explore through walks, visits and fieldwork to parks, shops and other places locally and beyond.

More Information about Geography

Intent

Within the Federation, we have designed our Geography curriculum with the intent that it will inspire our children with a curiosity, fascination and appreciation of the world around them. It will equip them with a diverse knowledge and understanding of people, places, natural, human and physical geography. The curriculum progression will expand outwards from the immediate locality to the global but with a comparison and contrast to the touchstone of the local at each step. The curriculum will engage our children and facilitate and inspire them to become inquisitive, resilient, independent, challenging thinkers and active global citizens with the confidence to use, and build on, their cultural capital, learning and experiences - both inside and outside of the classroom.

We will deliver a curriculum that:

Will create confident geographers and prepare them for the journey beyond.
Is scaffolded by excellent teaching practices.
Allows children to develop key geographical skills, including the gathering, communication and critical analysis of data and sources of information.
Creates deep-seated learning and skills, as a permanent foundation for the next steps in progression.
Promotes higher order analytical and creative thinking, in considering real world features, problems and solutions.
Will challenge children to research information and think for themselves, give reasoned answers, work independently, be socially aware of local and global geographical issues, and develop good resilience and attitudes to learning.
Creates fun, enjoyable, engaging, memorable learning experiences.
Gives children the opportunity to consider and apply cross curricular learning.

The identity and characteristics of each school are very important to us. As such, the curriculum drivers for each school add a bespoke element to the Cornerstones scheme , further enhancing and personalising the curriculum. Click here to see our curriculum drivers for Geography.

Implementation

The curriculum is led and overseen by the Geography curriculum leader, who will regularly monitor, evaluate and review Geography teaching and learning, celebrating and sharing good practice. As with all subjects, the leader facilitates an in-depth subject inquiry with pupils, parents and staff. The outcome report can be found at the bottom of this page. Formative assessments will be integrated into every day Geography teaching to ensure teachers have an in depth knowledge of the children’s learning and inform their next steps. Low stakes testing of Geography will also inform termly assessments and allow for long term memory development and secure understanding of skills.

The National Curriculum 2014 and the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework 2017 provide the basis for our Geography curriculum, which is then tailored to meet the learning and developmental needs of the children in our school. 

Teachers will plan Geography using the newly developed progression of knowledge and skills documents which will allow children to build upon prior knowledge and understanding. All schools within the Federation use the Cornerstones Curriculum to ensure that planning both in terms of sequencing and progression in Geography is appropriately challenging and robust.

The geography projects are well sequenced to provide a coherent subject scheme that develops children’s geographical knowledge, skills and subject disciplines. Geographical locations are not specified in the national curriculum, so they have been chosen to provide a broad and diverse understanding of the world. These can be seen in more detail using CurriculumPRO. Where there are opportunities for making meaningful connections with other projects, geography projects are sequenced accordingly. For example, children revisit the geography of settlements in the history project School Days after studying types of settlements in the geography project Bright Lights, Big City. All geography projects are taught in the autumn and spring terms, with opportunities for schools to revisit less secure concepts in the summer term.

What will pupils know?

Our curriculum intent; what children in all ages across school will know is guided by the National Curriculum. Going further, knowledge and skills are sequenced and linked with other areas of learning to provide children with what we believe to be a spectacular science curriculum. Our progression documents can be found below. Our 'Big Ideas' across the curriculum are lenses in which we see and study each National Curriculum subject . Within each subject, each Big Idea is mapped to a more precise aspect. These aspects provide the necessary disciplinary knowledge for each subject. By organising learning in this way we are able to plan for deeper learning within each subject discipline whilst linking all learning in school to broader categories or Big Ideas. This also enables knowledge, skills and concepts to be constantly revisited, helping children to know more and remember more.

By the end of Y6 we want children to know about:

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1, each autumn term begins with essential skills and knowledge projects (Our Wonderful World in Year 1 and Let’s Explore the World in Year 2). Teaching these projects in Years 1 and 2 enables children to be introduced to, or revisit, critical geographical concepts, aspects, skills and knowledge. These projects prepare children for the study of more thematic geography projects in the following term.

In the spring term of Year 1, children study the project Bright Lights, Big City. This project introduces children to the geography of urban environments and the physical and human features of the United Kingdom. In contrast, in the spring term of Year 2, children carry out a detailed study of coastal geography in the project Coastline. This project introduces children to the geography of coastal environments and provides children with the opportunity for in-depth coastal fieldwork.

Lower Key Stage 2

In Lower Key Stage 2, children begin with essential skills and knowledge projects (One Planet, Our World in Year 3 and Interconnected World in Year 4). Teaching these projects in Years 3 and 4 enables children to further develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of key geographical aspects and concepts and prepares them to study more thematic geography projects in the following term.

In the spring term of Year 3, children study the project Rocks, Relics and Rumbles, which explores physical features and geographical phenomena, including earthquakes and volcanoes. In contrast, in the spring term of Year 4, children carry out a detailed study of the physical features of mountains and rivers, which includes opportunities for in-depth fieldwork.

Upper Key Stage 2

In Upper Key Stage 2, children again begin with essential skills and knowledge projects (Investigating Our World in Year 5 and Our Changing World in Year 6). Teaching these projects in Years 5 and 6 enables children to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding of key geographical aspects and concepts and prepares them to study more thematic geography projects in the following term.

In the spring term of Year 5, children study the seasonal project Sow, Grow and Farm, which explores farming, agriculture and rural land use. In the spring term of Year 6, children study the polar regions in the project Frozen Kingdoms. The project includes an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of these regions, including environmental issues.

Impact 

The impact of this geography curriculum design, will lead to outstanding progress over time across key stages relative to a child’s individual starting point and their progression of skills. Children will therefore be expected to leave the Federation reaching at least age-related expectations for Geography. Our Geography curriculum will also lead pupils to be enthusiastic Geography learners, evidenced in a range of ways, including pupil voice and their work. Upon leaving our school to embark on their journey to Key Stage 3 learning, children will be equipped with the skills, knowledge and understanding to confidently continue their geography learning journey. We hope that, beyond academic achievement, children feel that their geography lessons have inspired them to become great citizens for our planet.

Would you like to know more about Geography within the Federation?

If you would like to see the topics we cover in Geography, please visit class pages. For Geography topics together with the vocabulary that we cover, you may find the below documents useful;

You can find out more about the specific way provision in Foundation Stage 2 links into the subject by reading about objectives that children access in Geography within the Foundation Stage.

You may also wish to find out more about how children make progress across the school by reading our Geography Progression Grid which explains the knowledge and skills we expect a typical child to demonstrate at the end of each year.

Click here to return to the Curriculum page.