Geography Curriculum - The Big Picture
Intent
The Geography curriculum at BEBCMAT aims to inspire children to have a curiosity and fascination about the world and people around them. It provides children with the opportunities to understand the earth, in the past, present and in the future, with careful consideration to how they are interconnected. Lessons are intended to improve the children’s geographical vocabulary, map skills and geographical understanding as they progress through primary school and will provide opportunities for consolidation, challenge and variety to ensure interest in geography will remain with the children throughout their lives.
Geography taught within the trust also allows children to understand the relationships between individual people and the earth; paying particular attention to how our daily lives impact the world we live in. Children will become geographers by collecting, analysing and interpreting a range of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes and photographs. Geography at BEBCMAT will contribute to the cultural and moral life of the children as they learn about a variety of different places, allowing them to develop a tolerance and understanding of other people and environments. The sequence of lessons throughout each key stage ensures that the children are exposed to all the skills required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum. Each topic chosen is of a suitable nature for the child’s age and understanding of the world which will allow for a broader, deeper understanding of the four areas of geography as identified in the National Curriculum.
Implementation
Throughout the Early Years Foundation Stage, children continuously explore the natural world around them and, because of this, will be able to recognise that some environments are different from the one they live in. By the end of the children’s time within the Foundation Stage, their understanding of the world will have grown to allow the children to describe their immediate environment with support from observation, discussion, stories and simple maps. They will understand some important processes which change the natural world around them (seasons) and be able to explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries through the use of stories, non-fiction texts and images. All of this will provide an excellent foundation for the children to enhance their geographical understanding throughout Key Stage 1 and beyond.
In Years 1-6, Geography is taught once a week, for one hour, on a half termly basis. Geography lessons start with spaced retrieval, whereby the children can review previous learning to help make connections and solidify content taught. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, the children will build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new stills. In Key Stage 1, children begin to use maps and recognise physical and human features associated with the local area, building to use maps to explore the continents and oceans in Year 2. By the end of Key Stage 1, children will have begun to compare where they will to places outside of Europe and be able to ask, and answer, geographical questions. Throughout Key Stage 2, map skills are developed further and the children will expand their skills in local knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork.
The children will be exposed to a variety of places and/or geographical features, ensuring they are exposed to both human and physical aspects. The children will be encouraged to ask thoughtful questions about the information presented to them and make connections to prior learning. Each year, the children’s skills will develop as they explore a new aspect of geography and they will become more confident and independent when analysing geographical information.
Impact
Teachers have high expectations of all children and, because of this, all children will use geographical vocabulary and skills with increasing confidence and as their skills and knowledge develop. Through low stake quizzes, retrieval tasks and informal conversations, planning will be adapted to cater the needs of learners to ensure each lesson is purposeful and meaningful.
Children will begin to make relevant links between geography and different subject areas and they will improve their inquiry skills and inquisitiveness about the world around them. Children will develop understanding that the choices they make impact the world around them and will have an understanding of their responsibility to develop the sustainability of our planet.
