Geography

                                                                                                                            

Intent statement:

The national curriculum states, “A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. 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."

At Chalk Ridge, we want our children to be confident within their learning and inquisitive about the world around them. We will help to answer their questions by learning about different places around the world. This will be done through interpreting a range of sources including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS). They will then communicate their geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills. We will see their progression throughout their time at Chalk Ridge because they will know more, remember more and are able to do more.

Implementation statement:

In the Foundation Stage, children are taught geography through the key area of learning set out within the EYFS Statutory Framework. Through a broad range of teacher-led, child-initiated and continuous learning opportunities, children will be taught to:

  • Find out about, identify and observe the different features of living things, objects and worldly events;
  • Look closely at similarities, differences, patterns and change;
  • Ask questions about why things happen and why things work;
  • Develop their communication and co-operation skills;
  • Talk about their findings, sometimes recording them;
  • Identify and find out about features of the place they live and in the natural world around them.

In KS1 and KS2, children continue to build on their geography knowledge with more formal weekly geography lessons. Geography units can last around 6 weeks and are taught in blocks which alternate with history.

The substantive knowledge is divided into the following units:

The disciplinary knowledge is divided into four key areas:

 

 

Impact statement:  

Pupils enjoy, and are successful in, learning across the seven geographical substantive knowledge blocks: place, space, environment, interconnection, sustainability, scale and change. This is interwind with applying their disciplinary knowledge through the enquiry process.

The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Geography scheme of work is that children will:

  • Compare and contrast human and physical features to describe and understand similarities and differences between various places in the UK, Europe and the Americas.
  • Name, locate and understand where and why the physical elements of our world are located and how they interact, including processes over time relating to climate, biomes, natural disasters and the water cycle.
  • Understand how humans use the land for economic and trading purposes, including how the distribution of natural resources has shaped this.
  • Develop an appreciation for how humans are impacted by and have evolved around the physical geography surrounding them and how humans have had an impact on the environment, both positive and negative.
  • Develop a sense of location and place around the UK and some areas of the wider world using the eight-points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and keys on maps, globes, atlases, aerial photographs and digital mapping.
  • Identify and understand how various elements of our globe create positioning, including latitude, longitude, the hemispheres, the tropics and how time zones work, including night and day.
  • Present and answer their own geographical enquiries using planned and specifically chosen methodologies, collected data and digital technologies.
  • Meet the ‘Understanding the World’ Early Learning Goals at the end of EYFS, and the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Geography by the end of Year 2 and Year 6.

We measure impact through:

  • Retrieval tasks at the beginning of each lesson to assess their prior understanding;
  • Half-termly meetings with children to discuss geography to help make improvements and celebrate their successes;
  • Ensuring the planning is followed, with necessary tweaks to support learners in the classroom. Following the planning ensures a progression of skills.

Observation of teaching and learning will show:

  • Teachers have a good level of subject knowledge;
  • Teachers use a range of questioning to explore children’s understanding;
  • Verbal feedback is constructive and allows children to develop their disciplinary knowledge;
  • Children are able to use and explain the meaning of subject specific vocabulary;
  • Children’s misconceptions are addressed through oral feedback;
  • Pupils feel able to make a positive contribution to a diverse and rapidly changing world;
  • Pupils are encouraged to develop open minds to new and different concepts and to form their own opinions based on evidence and argument;
  • Marking and feedback encourages ‘deeper’ thinking for greater depth understanding;
  • Formative assessment through questioning during lessons and investigations;
  • Confident and curious children who can eagerly talk about their geography lessons and discoveries they have made;
    children are able to use and explain the importance of geographical skills.