"The study of geography is about more than just memorising places on a map. It's about understanding the complexity of our world, appreciating that diversity of cultures that exists across continents and in the end, it's about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together." - Barack Obama
Geography Curriculum Lead
Mr P Williams
Curriculum Intent
We aim to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We want children to enjoy learning about geography and develop their 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. Our Geography curriculum builds on children’s prior learning and develops their knowledge of the world around them so that they know more, remember more, and understand more. Learning about Geography enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development.
Geography in Early Years
Nursery
- Understand ‘how’ questions, like: “How is an igloo different from your house?”
- Describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps
- Know some similarities and differences between different religious and cultural communities in this country, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class
- Explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries, drawing on knowledge from stories, non-fiction texts and – when appropriate – maps.
- Explore the natural world around them, making observations and drawing pictures of animals and plants;
- Know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments, drawing on their experiences and what has been read in class;
- Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons.
Reception
- Learn new geographical vocabulary such as land, sea, mountain, hill, river, pond.
- Ask questions to find out more and to check what has been said to them.
- Articulate their ideas and thoughts in well-formed sentences.
- Describe geographical photographs and compare and contrast features in some detail.
- Use talk to work out problems and organise thinking and activities.
- Explain how things work and why they might happen.
- Use new vocabulary in different contexts.
- Use WOW (Word of the Week) to introduce specific geographical terms such as Country, Continent, aerial.
- Introduce basic mapwork skills.
Curriculum Implementation
As a school within Bishop Hogarth Catholic Education Trust, we teach a scheme of work designed by a transition team of our primary school staff working with subject specialists from our secondary schools. This means our curriculum has been designed to ensure clear progression, in the acquisition of knowledge and for key skills, building on pupil’s prior learning. We teach termly, discreet topics for all pupils from Year 1 to Year 6. The curriculum units of work have clearly identified minimum knowledge ‘end points,’ and have been sequenced to ensure that pupils know more and remember more as they move through primary school and transfer into KS3. Our curriculum covers the National Curriculum and is underpinned by the building blocks of Geography (Threshold Concepts) which are emphasised and reinforced in the geography curriculum across our Trust schools from KS1 to KS5.
1. Location and Place Knowledge
2. Geographical techniques and terms.
3. Physical features and processes.
4. Human interaction with the environment.
Each unit of work has a clear rationale, key topic vocabulary, builds on pupil’s prior learning and defines the minimum knowledge and skills (end points) that pupils will learn. Assessment strands in topics give pupils the opportunity to demonstrate their learning and the knowledge companions that we call ‘Learn it! Link It! help pupils to remember the key elements of the topic. This helps pupil organise their learning into relevant areas and make links to other areas and subjects. Conceptual (Golden) threads of Geography such as cause, effect response and the ‘Geotrio’ of social, economic, and environmental factors, are woven through our curriculum to ensure consistency, add focus and promote purposeful learning.
Topics and units lay out sequential components of learning which equates to 8-10 hours of teaching.
Key Stage 1 Topics include:
• The local area: where I live.
• Weather patterns
• A contrasting locality: Antarctica
• A contrasting locality: Brazil
Key Stage 2 Topics include:
• Angry Earth: Volcanoes
• Angry Earth: Earthquakes
• Biomes: Tropical Rainforest
• Biomes: Deserts
• Swimming in Plastic
• Seaside Rocks/Coastal Erosion
• Journey of the River
• Angry Earth: Japanese Tsunami of 2011
• Climate Change is Real
• Migration
• Country study: North America
• Natural Resources/European comparison
• Settlements
Local Context of School
St John the Evangelist Catholic Academy is located on Cowpen Lane in the town of Billingham in the North-East of England. Originally an Anglo Saxon settlement, there is a rich industrial heritage with ICI, now a site of Biomedical research. There is a train station with links to Edinburgh and to London and we are proud to have this railway heritage. We are close to the A19 which joins the A1 motorway. There is one river: River Tees (pumping station). The River Tees has its source at Cross Fell in the north Pennines, it flows eastwards for 85 miles through Teesside before it joins the North Sea. We are close to Teesmouth National Nature Reserve.
Curriculum Impact
When pupils leave our school, pupil will know more, remember more, and understand more about Geography. They will have developed the geographical knowledge and skills to help them explore, navigate, and understand the world around them and their place in it. The majority of pupil will achieve age related expectations in Geography and clear progress will be evident in their topic work and in topic assessed tasks. Outcomes in Geography books will demonstrate the pupil’s acquisition of key knowledge and topic, ‘end points’. They will have the firm foundations in Geography and are well placed to make good progress at Key Stage 3.