Geography

INTENT
At Cheadle Heath Primary School geography forms an integral part of our creative curriculum. We want to teach our children to understand the complexity of our world, appreciate the diversity of its cultures and their responsibilities to care for our environment. We aim to teach children about the problems that face our planet through their understanding of environment and sustainability and how they can play their part in slowing down climate change. We want our children to think like geographers about the world they live in, knowing where’s where. We believe that learning geography is so important because it helps children make sense of the world around them and piques their curiosity in people and places, engaging them in the world around them.

We use an enquiry based approach to explore the world around us. Within our classrooms, we follow these rich lines of enquiry by answering questions such as Where are the coldest places on Earth? What are rainforests and where in the world are they? What will the Arctic regions be like in 2050? Where is London and what is it like? Studying geography in this way inspires children’s curiosity, encourages them to ask critical questions and enables them to have a better understanding of the world in which they live.

IMPLEMENTATION
At Cheadle Heath Primary School, geography is embedded in our topic-based approach to learning in KS1 and through into KS2. In EYFS it falls into Knowledge and Understanding of the World and Maths and is taught both in ‘Story in Circle’ and through continuous provision with enhancements. Geography is taught at least once each term and endeavour to keep geographical skills fresh and present by coming back to place / locational knowledge whenever a new place is mentioned throughout their topic (which continent is this on? Which country? And so on). Teachers plan sequences of lessons across the unit that will build on and develop the children’s knowledge and skills.

Although we teach under the umbrella of thematic topics, we believe that children should see geography as a subject in its own right. When planning our curriculum, we have thought about its distinctive character as a discipline and ensured that we have woven the concepts that are fundamental to geographical thinking into our curriculum. Skills needed to be a geographer are taught progressively. Concepts are built upon, learning is revisited and children’s locational knowledge is built on year on year. Teachers are clear about what they need children to learn and how this builds on prior learning. We draw on the expertise of The Geographical Association to ensure our units are well planned and use this organisation to develop our teachers’ subject knowledge and have invested in a subscription of Digimaps to support our teachers and children in developing a secure knowledge of map skills using high quality resources. Field work is a statutory part of the national curriculum and is a key priority for our school this year with the intention that it is undertaken on a regular basis. We know that first hand experiences are really important for our children at CHPS. Fieldwork ensures are children are engaging with the world around them, managing risks, navigating real landscapes and gathering data for real purposes. Through our geography curriculum, we have thought about key threads that run through units. These include sustainability, connectivity and community. These threads are revisited over time and add to the cohesiveness of our curriculum.

The children use a blank knowledge organiser which they compile and complete as they move through the unit – noting down their ‘new learning’ each session and any further questions which may have arisen for them, it is also where key vocabulary is recorded.

EYFS

The most relevant statements for geography are taken from the Mathematics and Understanding of the World strands of Development Matters, here the children develop prerequisite skills for working through the geography national curriculum in KS1 and KS2. In the Foundation Stage the geography curriculum aims to inspire curiosity and fascination about the world, its people, its places, cultures and lives. The children will begin with their everyday geography, for example ‘journeys’ their journey to school, to the local shops. They will consider the journeys of the characters in the traditional tales they encounter in literacy e.g. The Gingerbread Man and Goldilocks as well as in the well-chosen texts for ‘Story in Circle’ make simple maps of their area within school, their classroom and story maps for characters. They will have opportunities to discover the wider world through their Story in Circle and identify similarities and differences drawing on their own experiences.

KS1 (A)

Where We Live

Study maps, areal photographs and plans of school and local area. fieldwork - local fieldwork study.

Adventures on the Seas

Name and locate 7 continents and 5 oceans. Find the hottest and coldest parts of the world using maps and atlases.

Seasides Holidays

Name and locate 4 countries of the UK and capital cities. compare local area with seaside. Look at human and physical features.

KS1 (B)

An Eye on London

Revise 4 counties of the Uk and focus in on London. Human and physical features - famous landmarks

Journeys

comapre and contarst a small area of the UK (Cheadle Heath in Stockport) with a small area of a non European country (Dayton Ohio)

Local fieldwork study

Marvellous Monarchy

Identify seasonal and daily weather patterns in the UK.

Revise 4 countires and cities of the UK

Year 3

Savage Stone Age

Name and locate the countries and cities of the UK, geographical regions and identify their physical and human features and land use patterns and how they have changed over time - link to early neolithic settlement near to physical fearures e.g. rivers

Rainforests

Locate the world’s countries using maps to focus on Europe (inc Russia) North and South America.

Describe and Understand key aspects of physical geography including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts and water cycle.

Describe key aspects of human geography including types of settlement, land use and distribution of natural resources.

Compare an area of UK with European country (Rainforests)

Rotten Romans

Revise the countries and cities of the UK, geographical regions and identify their physical and human features and land use patterns and how they have changed over time - build on topic 1 and link to Roman introduction of farming.

Year 4

Raiders and Treaders

Revise the countires and cities of the UK, identify geographical regions and link to the Anglo Saxon settlements. Look at topographical maps to see features of an area of settlement.

Extreme Earth

Look at the extreme climates of the world. What are they, wher are they and why do they occur? Look at maps and atlases to revise equator and tropic of cancer and capricorn.

Volcaoes, mountains, earthquakes

Awful Egyptians

Describe and Understand key aspects of physical geography including rivers and the water cycle.

Describe key aspects of human geography including types of settlement, land use and distribution of natural resources.

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features

UKS2 (A)

Conflict

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features. Locate bombings in local area and how this impacted on the people and landscape.

Revise countries and capital cities of the world - link to theri involvement in WWII

Frozen planet

Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, equator, Northern and southern hemisphere, tropic of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle and time zones.

Use maps, atlases ad digital mapping to locate countries and describe features.

Describe and Understand key aspects of physical geography including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts.

Describe key aspects of human geography including types of settlement, land use and distribution of natural resources.

Groovy Greeks

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features.

Revise countires of the world with a focus on Europe.

Compare and contrast Greece (an area of) with the UK - use of maps to look at land use and differences / similarities

UKS2 (B)

Invasion

Name and locate the countries and cities of the UK, geographical regions and identify their physical and human features and land use patterns and how they have changed over time.

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features.

Use the eight points of the compass and 6 figure grid references, symbols and key to build knowledge of the UK and wider world

Around the World

Locate the world’s countries using maps to focus on Europe, North and South America, concentrating on environmental regions key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities.

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features

Magical Maya

Understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical features of a region of UK, a region in a European country and a region in South America.

Use maps, atlases and digital / computer mapping to locate countries and describe features

IMPACT
The impact of our Geography curriculum can clearly be seen in the children’s Topic books. Our rich geography curriculum is also evident in the texts that we have selected for our children to read, displays in our classrooms, stay and learn events (parents invited into the classroom at the end of the topic) where children share their knowledge with their parents and the geographical narratives our children recount.

The unit overview outlines the main learning objectives – enquiry questions – that the children will investigate and answer during their learning. The opportunity to evaluate and reflect on the learning is planned for regularly to enable the children to see how their learning is progressing. Each new lesson begins with recalling what we know / what we have learnt. At the end of the geography unit there is an assessment activity (these take a variety of forms) where the children responds to the original enquiry question. There are also informal opportunities used constantly throughout the topic through questioning, mini quizzes and tasks which teacher’s observe. At the end of the year, class teachers then use the children’s recorded work and assessment to make a judgement as to whether each child is working towards or at the expected level.