Geography
Curriculum Documents
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Geography Intent, Implementation and Impact | [pdf 630KB] |
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Shurdington Geography Overview | [pdf 2MB] |
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Geography Skills and Knowledge Progression | [pdf 132KB] |
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Geography Vocabulary Progression | [pdf 314KB] |
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Geography Knowledge Stem | [pdf 1MB] |
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Geography Intent
The study of Geography involves our pupils exploring the relationship and interactions between people and the environments in which they live. It is effectively about understanding the world we live in. It helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. At Shurdington children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. The Geography curriculum enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas.
At Shurdington we intend when teaching geography to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and people within it; to promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. The many opportunities and challenges that will arise during their lifetime will be very much about Geography at personal, national and global scales. What we intend pupils to learn in geography reflects this throughout the curriculum. High aspirations are clearly identifiable in the progressive and increasingly challenging objectives of our curriculum. The curriculum is relevant, broad and balanced in terms of the areas of subject content we have selected. These reflect the guidance of and are commensurate with the demands of the National Curriculum. For example, we have ensured that content includes an even proportion of physical and human investigations such as the effect of rivers on the landscape and the impact of volcanoes on people. Due consideration has been given also to making certain that our Geography curriculum maintains relevancy and topicality through including enquires that engage pupils in studying issues such as climate change, flooding and trade.
The curriculum is sequenced to ensure that pupils can build on previous knowledge and understanding as they tackle more complex and demanding enquiries. For example, the understanding gained and concepts explored through an enquiry on the impact of rainfall in Year 4 are revisited in Year 5 when the pupils study the impact of living within an area of rainforest.
We intend the Shurdington Geography curriculum to show progress in terms of knowledge, skills and challenge through Years 1 to 6. This is both in terms of the complexity of the subject knowledge we want our pupils to acquire and also the critical thinking skills utilised to ensure they understand the significance of that knowledge. These anticipated outcomes in knowledge and understanding skills acquisition are detailed in the Shurdington Georgaphy Overview.
The Geography curriculum supports two areas of our ‘Shurdington Experiences’ (agreed experiences we want all children to take part in before they leave our school):
- Go to a woodland/Forest Schools
- Feel good about themselves and feel proud.
Geography Implementation
Geography and will be taught weekly within three half-term units that are spread throughout the academic year. Geography lessons are supported by ‘knowledge stems’ – multiple choice low stake tests that are done weekly to reinforce 6-8 key geographical facts teachers have identified children must know by the end of the unit.
Geography unit cover sheets will also be used with key information and knowledge for each unit included. Part of this will also be a glossary of words to be completed by the children throughout the topic. This ensures there is progression of geographical vocabulary across the school.
Within EYFS, children will focus their learning on their own local environment, before going on to be able to compare and contrast this with other places. They will start in their geographical journey by thinking geographically and using geographical language, whilst beginning to use geographical skills such as map making. From here, in Key Stage 1, children will build on this knowledge, concentrating first on the local weather and on the school, before branching out to find out more about the island on which they live. From here they will develop their geographical knowledge and atlas, mapping and observational and recording skills before they find out about the world in which they live – notably the continents and the oceans which make up our world.
Within KS2, the aim is to build upon the KS1 geographical knowledge and learning the children have accessed. First the children in Y3 will find out about the UK in more detail and will be able to talk confidently about their learning. From here children will spend time in each year learning about a specific country for a unit of work – one contrasting in both human and physical geography from the UK. A key physical geographical feature that is found within that country will also be investigated to further improve children’s geographical knowledge. Then other areas of the world that feature is found in will also be used to improve learning. Time will also be spent teaching and honing geography skills in order for children to have a broad geographical understanding and be confident geographers by the time they leave the school. More detailed information can be found in the Shurdington Geography Overview.
Geography Impact
The impact of our geography curriculum will be measured through the progress in books, ‘knowledge stems’ progress, pupil conferences, the knowledge displayed by children verbally or shown within task outcomes. Unit cover sheet glossaries will show children’s understanding of geographical vocabulary and children will be able to speak confidently about lesson key questions and do well in end of unit assessments.