Geography

Intent, Implementation and Impact Statement

Subject: Geography

Intent

At Arden Primary School, our ethos ‘Every Child. Every Opportunity’, is key component in the curriculum we have created to shape and develop the minds of our pupils. Geography, working closely with other subjects, aims to provide our children with opportunity, experience and skills they will carry throughout their academic careers and beyond. Geography is not only a study of contrasting landscapes and becoming ‘map experts’, but more importantly it is a crucial stepping stone in our children identifying who they are and where they are. A secure knowledge and cultivated curiosity provides our children with the keys to unlock the doorways to an ever expanding and ever more interconnected global community that within lies in their future.

Through a mixture of engaging, practical and theory-based lessons our children develop their knowledge of location; mapping out their understanding of where everything is on our planet. This is further supported by building our pupil’s ‘place knowledge’, giving them the tools to compare different areas and understand how wildly conditions on our world can differ. Our children are also challenged to understand the difference between human and physical geography. Being able to understand and describe the effect human civilisation has had on our land whilst also learning about the jaw-dropping power of nature.

Our pupils are also provided with various opportunities to develop their fieldwork skills, using practical activities to gather data through a variety of mediums. A high emphasis is also placed on maps skills, as throughout the key stages children are given the tools to interpret, analyse and create maps of increasing complexity.

All Geography lessons and tied closely with the exciting topics that are ongoing in each year group providing our children with a wholesome and purposeful education. Cross curricular links are made wherever possible.

Most of all, we hope to inspire and excite our pupils making them eager to explore this subject further when they reach secondary education.

Implementation

Arden employs a progressive skill-based curriculum, in line with the N.C (2014), where teachers utilise our school skill progression map to plan lessons to appropriate depth. This provides children with a foundation of knowledge and skills that enables them to extend their learning in subsequent years.  

In early years children are discreetly challenged to explain their observations and ask open ended questions on their locality and other features of physical geography such as the weather and seasons. Through storytelling, children are exposed to different lands, geography and climates.

As stated earlier, throughout key stage 1 and 2 Geography is interwoven within the five different topics each year group explores. Teachers ensure full coverage of knowledge is reached by the end of their year. In this coverage four key skills are developed throughout the year.

Locational Knowledge: In key stage 1, children begin their understanding of the United Kingdom by identifying the four nations that reside within before moving on to additional features such as surrounding seas. This then builds into identifying the oceans of the world. In Key stage 2 continents and a wider range of countries are explored including the names of capital cities. Children later becoming to identify the difference between the different hemispheres of the world and understand key countries in each continent.

Place Knowledge: Pupils in key stage 1 begin to compare different areas of physical and human geography within the UK. Key stage 2 compare the UK with countries that are in different continents and differing climates and terrain. Upper key stage 2 are challenged to explain why these differences exist.

Human and Physical Geography: Key stage 1 explore different weather, climates, seasons and identify the northern and southern pole, understanding the equator encircles the middle of the Earth. Key stage 2 begins to explore the more awesome and terrifying aspects of nature such as volcanoes, earthquakes and the water cycle. Throughout the key stages different type of human settlements are explored ranging from rural villages to sprawling cities. Upper key stage 2 begin to understand the world’s many natural resources and how some of these are utilised and destroyed.

Fieldwork: Key stage 1 children engage in practical activities to gather data and create simple maps to navigate around the local area or within the school. Key stage 2 children being to analyse, create and navigate with maps of greater complexity involving grid references to add precision. Sketching is also utilised throughout the key stages as a medium to observe, analyse and describe their local geography.

Pupils using appropriate and topic-specific vocabulary is to be employed throughout curriculum increasing in complexity as pupils move through the key stages.

Knowledge organisers have also been created for each topic so children and parents are aware of what is to be taught specific to geography in each topic. This includes a list of appropriate vocabulary with definitions. Parents are also given ideas and projects to complete at home that will further support and extend the lesson taught at school.

At Arden we believe that all subjects are of equal importance. The care and high standards children strive for in English and maths are expected in our curriculum subjects and teachers ensure work reflects the best of our pupil’s ability.

Where ever possible teachers are encouraged to be creative and take the learning outside of the classroom. Environment walks and area surveys have been embedded into the curriculum to allow our children to develop their fieldwork and observational skills in practical environments.

Impact

At Arden we continually strive to ensure children achieve the highest standard possible in all subjects. In Geography: 

• Children are assessed termly against the learning objectives set out for each project.
• Children are provided with end of project quizzes to measure attainment.
• Books are moderated throughout the year to ensure high standards and consistency is evident throughout the key stages.
• Interviews with children (pupil voice) to ensure our pupil’s thoughts, ideas and concerns are addressed.
• Work is marked and children receive written and verbal feedback about their work.

Ultimately, children at Arden are provided with every opportunity to become the best possible version of themselves. We believe regardless of your start in life, all children have the potential to succeed and deserve best experience possible during their time in primary school.

Through a progress model of thematic learning, the children will revisit key concepts during each topic. These key concepts are:

Locational Knowledge, Place Knowledge, Human and Physical Geography, Geographical skills and Fieldwork

Knowledge Organisers

In Geography, we use knowledge organisers to make the vocabulary, subject knowledge and curriculum expectations clear. See below for examples.