Geography at St. Thomas More Catholic Primary School

Intent

Our aim is for all children to become confident, creative and engaged learners who achieve their full God-given potential.  We ensure that through the lens of faith we develop individual, unique people and form the foundations of them being able to contribute to society.  Our school vision is that as a Catholic school, God is at the heart of all we do. We believe that each person is made in His image, deserving to be treated with respect and dignity.  Showing respect, love and care for everyone and everything, we aim to develop harmony between pupils, parents the school and Parish and grow as a Christian community. We aim to enable each individual to realise their full potential, spiritually, academically, physically, socially and emotionally.  

Our Geography curriculum is designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We intend to equip children with geographical skills to develop their knowledge through studying places (local, nationwide and worldwide), people and natural and human environments. This seeks to deepen the understanding of the Earth’s human and physical forms and processes. Geography, by nature, is an investigative subject.

We have created a curriculum that is designed to develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, throughout their time at St Thomas More and also to their further education and beyond.

Our curriculum aims to ensure that all children:

• develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes;
• understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time;
• are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
  • collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
  •  interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
  • communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.

(National Curriculum, 2014).

Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in geography at St Thomas More Catholic Primary School, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the school.  All learning will be scaffolded to support children to recall previous learning and make connections. Teachers have been provided with a bank of progressive vocabulary to support this.  We believe knowledge and skills are of equal value and importance and our planning and teaching reflects this. 

Within EYFS, geographical knowledge and skills are taught through ‘Understanding the World’, continuous provision activities and ‘Wellie Wednesday’.  From Year 1 to Year 6, the knowledge and skills set out in the National Curriculum are taught using key learning questions based around our key values Inspiration, Education and Celebration.  Using key learning questions allows clear opportunities for assessment.  In Key Stage 1, geography is taught as part of a half-termly unit, focusing on the knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. In Key Stage 2, geography is taught fortnightly.  This knowledge is then revisited and built upon the following year.  This allows for a broad and rich knowledge and skill based curriculum.  We ensure we celebrate the diversity of the countries and cultures that are studied.

Where appropriate subject lead and teachers will offer a wide range of extra-curricular activities, visits, trips and visitors to complement and broaden the curriculum, which are purposeful and link with the knowledge that will be taught in class.

Impact

Children will have developed the geographical knowledge and skills to help them explore, navigate and understand the world around them and their place in it.  Children will retain knowledge that is pertinent to geography with a real life context. Children will leave KS2 with a love of Geography, a strong knowledge of their local area and a confidence of the location of other countries and cities around the world. We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about geography, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future.