Geography Curriculum
Intent
At St Benedict’s we inspire our children to develop a love for Geography. We aim to give children a solid foundation of skills and knowledge that they will take with them once they leave St. Benedicts. We aim to spark an interest and encourage awe and wonder about the World that they live in.The geography curriculum is varied, progressive and creative to ensure first and foremost that children at St.Benedict’s foster a life long love and interest for Geography.
The Geography curriculum builds upon prior knowledge in a carefully sequenced curriculum, both within and between year groups, and makes links to other subject areas where possible. Pupils develop an understanding of substantive concepts (Place and Space, Scale and Connection, Physical and human geography, Environment and sustainability and Culture and diversity) that act as threads throughout, allowing our children to make connections across the Geography curriculum from Nursery to Year 6.
We aim to give our children lots of opportiunities to use our locality within our Geography lessons and use this to develop an understanding for the wider world. We aim to bring alive places for the children by giving them exciting class trips. We use our field work to bring Geography alive for the children and to provide them a sense of wonder and excitement about visiting places around the world that they can take with them into their adult lives.
Implementation
At St Benedict’s we follow the CUSP Curriculum modules from Year 1 to Year 6, including links to Foundation Stage. Each module has a big idea which is broken up into stages with an enquiry question for each lesson. This overview is shared throughout each module allowing children to see the sequence of their learning. Enquiry questions are explored in each lesson and all children answer this at the end of their learning. Geography is taught individually but links are made across the curriculum where possible.
The sequence in KS1 focuses young children to develop a sense of place, scale and an understanding of human and physical geographical features. Later in KS1, children learn about the purpose and use of sketch maps as well as the key features they need to include. CUSP map skills and fieldwork are essential to support children in developing an understanding of how to explain and describe a place, the people who live there, its space and scale. Initially, children study the orientation of the world through acquiring and making locational sense of the 7 continents and 5 oceans of the world. They extend their knowledge and study the countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom, along with the oceans and seas that surround us. Further studies support retrieval; children revisit these locations with more complex and sophisticated tasks later in the school year. For young children, routes and maps can be made concrete in day-to-day experiences in the safety of their school grounds and classrooms. Throughout KS1, pupils enhance their locational knowledge by studying and identifying human and physical features of places. To deepen this understanding and transfer concepts, pupils study contrasting locations throughout the world. The location of these areas in the world are deliberately chosen to offer culturally diverse and contrasting places. Pupils study the human and physical features of a non-European location in Africa, such as Nairobi. This is also complemented by a study of an indigenous tribe in the rainforests of Brazil and Venezuela. These two studies also offer rich opportunities to know, compare and contrast different cultures in two continents using the consistent thread of human and physical features. Fieldwork and map skills are further developed with a study of the local area, using cardinal points of a compass. Maps are introduced through familiar stories as a way to communicate what the place and space is like. Pupils retrieve and apply knowledge about human and physical features in their local context. OS maps are introduced to pupils in KS1 using Digimap for Schools. Simple keys and features are identified and mapped locally to help begin to understand place, distance and scale. CUSP Geography gives pupils the knowledge they need to develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of place. Pupils study a variety of places – this helps them to connect different geographical concepts and gives them perspectives and opportunities to compare and contrast locations.
As pupils begin KS2, fieldwork and map skills are revisited with the intercardinal points of a compass points being introduced to elaborate on the knowledge pupils already have around cardinal points. This substantive and disciplinary knowledge is utilised to support a study of the UK, focusing on regions, counties, landmarks and topography. This study demands analysis and pattern seeking to identify the features of the UK. Further retrieval studies are designed to support conceptual fluency around physical and human features. Cause and effect are also developed through geographical reasoning. An example of this is the interrelationship between physical terrain of the northern regions of the UK and the lower lands of East Anglia, that are covered in glacial deposits. Further studies are undertaken to elaborate fieldwork and map skills through a sharper focus on OS maps. Pupils elaborate and expand their understanding of human and physical features and apply it to the study of rivers. To enable accurate location of places around the globe, pupils study absolute positioning or reference systems through latitude and longitude. Substantive knowledge is acquired and used to apply their new understanding to mapping and locational skills. An in-depth understanding of latitude and longitude is used by pupils throughout KS2. Complementing studies on location and position is the focus on the water cycle. It offers explanation and reason about physical processes as well as why certain biomes have specific features in specific global locations. Pupils study geographical patterns across the world using latitude of locations to explain why places are like they are. Further river studies revisit substantive knowledge and these are applied to the River Nile and the Amazon River as a precursor for future learning in other subjects. Further fieldwork and map skills are introduced to enrich pupils’ disciplinary knowledge of locations and places. Cultural awareness and diversity are taught specifically within learning modules. Examples include European studies, as well as studies of countries and people in Africa, and North and South America. A deliberately planned study focusing on the environmental regions of Europe, Russia, and North and South America draws attention to climate regions and is the precursor to studying biomes in UKS2.
The study of Biomes and Environmental regions builds upon world locations, latitude and longitude studies. In upper KS2, the study of 4 and 6 figure grid references supports prior learning of reference systems and brings an increased accuracy to mapping and fieldwork skills. Terrain is studied through contour lines and OS map skills and fieldwork. More advanced mapping skills using OS maps are studied and applied, with pupils using the accumulation of knowledge skilfully to analyse distribution and relationships. Route finding and decoding information through maps offers challenge through increasingly complex orienteering and mapping tasks. Pupils take part in geographical analysis using patterns and comparison of both human and physical processes as well as the features present in chosen locations. This abstract concept is made concrete through studying and comparing the Lake District, the Tatra mountains of Poland and the Blue mountains of Jamaica. Settlement, trade and economic activities are the focus of a study that draws upon the Windrush generation module in CUSP History. This develops an increasing knowledge about migration and the factors that push people away or draw people towards settlements. Within these studies, pupils make relational connections between settlements and physical or human features. Settlements such as ports or major world cities are studied to explain the reasons why certain places are populated and why. Disciplinary knowledge supports pupils to reason and explain the effect of change on a place, drawing on prior substantive knowledge they can retrieve and reuse.
Impact
The impact of our Geography curriculum is measured through a variety of different strategies. Ongoing teacher assessment is used throughout lessons to inform teaching. Retrieval practise is used throughout each lesson to address gaps in pupils’ knowledge before moving on. This is done through using a cumulative quiz in each unit that builds through the sequence of learning. Children also use knowledge organisers to continually look back and reflect on previous learning, allowing children to remember more from their lessons.
Children’s learning is monitored by regular book scrutiny by the Geography co-ordinator in which constructive feedback is given to staff for future planning. Geography is also monitored through learning walks and drop-in observations.
We value pupil and parent’s voice and opinions and we encourage participation through homework topics and class Twitter pages.
All of this is used to inform further curriculum developments and provision. At St. Benedict’s, staff work closely together as a team to ensure children receive the best Geography curriculum to allow them to develop a love of learning and skill set to become keen geographers.
