Rationale

At St Anne’s Catholic Primary School we believe that geography stimulates curiosity and imagination and we aim to build upon the child's ‘personal geography’ by developing geographical skills, understanding and knowledge through studying places and themes.

At St Anne’s Catholic Primary School geography is a valued part of the curriculum as it provides a means of exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. Geography explores the relationship between the earth and its people.

Purpose of study

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the framework and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.

Intent - What Do We Aspire for Our Children?

SMSC Statement

At St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, we recognise that the personal development of pupils, spiritually, morally, socially and culturally, plays a significant part in their ability to learn and achieve. We therefore aim to provide an education that provides pupils with opportunities to explore and develop their own values and beliefs, spiritual awareness, high standards of personal behaviour, a positive, caring attitude towards other people, an understanding of their social and cultural traditions and an appreciation of the diversity and richness of the cultures.

Aims

• To make sense of their own surroundings through learning about their own locality, and the interaction between people and environment.
• To extend their interest, knowledge and understanding of contrasting localities in Britain, Europe and the rest of the world.
• To develop knowledge and understanding of the human and physical processes which shape places.
• To appreciate similarity and difference in the world about them and to respect other people’s beliefs, attitudes and values.
• To develop the geographical skills and vocabulary necessary to carry out effective geographical enquiry.
• To formulate appropriate questions, develop research skills and evaluate material to inform opinions.
• To develop interest and enjoyment of geographical experiences and build confidence and understanding.
• To recognise and understand issues concerning the environment and sustainable development.

At St Anne's our geography curriculum fulfils the requirements of the National Curriculum for geography; providing a broad, balanced, ambitious and inclusive curriculum whilst also ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills. Through this we aim to inspire a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with our pupils for the rest of their lives. Our curriculum will equip pupils with a knowledge of diverse places and people, together with a deep understanding of our planet’s key physical and human processes. As an Eco-Schools Solihull Green Award holder, we want our curriculum to empower children with a deep understanding of local, national and global ecological issues and provide them with the necessary knowledge to make positive change as carers of God's creation

Implementation - How Will We Deliver the Curriculum?

Teaching and Learning

At St Anne’s geography involves;

• Undertaking fieldwork in the local area and places further afield in the UK.
• Comparing and contrasting land- forms, land uses, weather, seasons and ecosystems.
• The use of secondary sources e.g. photos, books, media and videos, to obtain geographical information.
• Following directions using positional and directional language, also using these to direct others.
• Expressing and evaluating views on the attractive and unattractive features of the environment, e.g. tidiness, noise, building on greenbelt land.
• Naming the physical features of places, e.g. mountain, sea, beach, factory, valley.
• Using developing language to talk about their work e.g. route, scale, tide, erosion, climate, temperate, continent.
• Developing geographical skills of; making observations and measuring, recording observations through maps, talk, and writing, taking photographs, sketches and diagrams.
• Using maps, globes, atlases and interpreting photographs.
• Help the children appreciate the variety of responses to the same basic needs (ethnic, cultural and economic) and to imagine what it might be like to experience life in other places.

At St Anne’s we use a variety of teaching and learning styles in our geography lessons. We use whole-class teaching methods and we combine these with enquiry-based research activities. We encourage children to ask as well as answer geographical questions.

We offer them the opportunity to use a variety of data, such as maps, statistics, graphs, pictures, video and aerial photographs, and we enable them to use ICT in geography lessons where this serves to enhance their learning.

Children take part in role-play and discussions, and they present reports to the rest of the class. Children learn about other places through reading stories with settings in different places and in different landscapes. They make outside visits and engage in a wide variety of problem-solving activities. Wherever possible, we involve the children in ‘real’ geographical activities, e.g. research of a local environmental problem.

The objectives of geography teaching in the school are based on the requirements of the National Curriculum programmes of study for key stages 1 and 2. The geography curriculum of the school will therefore help children to experience the following key aspects of the programme of study:

Using the National Curriculum, Geography has been broken down into 4 main strands (underpinned by Geographical enquiry) : Locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and field work. Furthermore, we have included an additional focus on human’s responsibility in caring for and developing a sustainable world.:

• Geographical skills and field work 
• Geographical enquiry
• Human and Physical Geography
• Locational Knowledge
• Place Knowledge
• Responsibility

Through the geography curriculum, pupils will develop an understanding of the following key concepts:

• Navigation: (interpreting a key, conventions of maps, map symbols, atlases, GIS, google maps, scale factor, reading and calculating from a scale, using compass points, the equator, the tropic lines, the poles, borders, countries and continents)
• Fieldwork: (Working collaboratively, planning investigations, collecting data, using instruments/specialist equipment, taking precise measurements, making observations, drawing conclusions)
• Economic activity: (Trade, land use, farming, wealth, poverty, imports and exports)
• Tectonic activity: (Volcanoes, earthquakes, tectonic plates, structure of the earth)
• Human features: (Transports, harbour, shops, towns, villages, community, places of worship)
• Physical features: (Water cycle, rainfall, mountains, hills, rivers, seas, oceans, tides, islands, tsunami)
• Natural resources: (Energy, minerals, food and water distribution)
• Sustainability: (Deforestation, climate change, renewable and non-renewable resources, sea level, food miles, industry, materials, globalisation)
• Climate and landscape: (Weather, rainfall, seasons, temperature, desert, polar, temperate, Mediterranean, arid, tropical, biomes, vegetation zones, tundra)

Disciplinary concepts

Throughout geography, the following second order concepts are explored. These concepts are developed across a range of subjects in the curriculum.

• Responsibility: (how humans affect the earth positively and negatively, the use of finite resources, climate change and sustainability)
• Similarity and difference: (making comparisons between places, localities, regions etc…)
• Cause and consequence: (understanding the effect of humans and nature on landscapes and settlement)
• Continuity and change: (how have physical and human features changed over time and why)
• Significance: (significant geographical features, places, events)
• Enquiry: (observing, collecting and interpreting data, drawing conclusions, explaining and presenting findings)
• Written and oral expression: (Using geographical terminology, evaluation, description, recall, objectivity, explaining processes, describing and explaining trends, presenting and interpreting data)

In Geography, by the end of EYFS children will:

Begin to understand how they are part of their own locality which is part of a bigger world. They will learn about different people and communities and use speaking, listening and understanding to develop and explore these in greater detail linked to broad overarching topics. They will be able to comprehend the features of their immediate environment and how this might vary from others.

By the end of Key Stage 1 children will:

Use and make a range of geographical resources such as photos and maps to locate features in their locality and the world. They will understand the principle of directions and look at land use, climate and physical features of Great Britain and other locations in the world.

By the end of Key Stage 2 children will:

Be able to compare their own locality to different locations around the world. They will conduct simple fieldwork to exemplify common geographical processes and develop an understanding of map work such that these features can be examined and identified in a wider context. Children will gain knowledge of the impact of humans on the landscape and recognize the impact of themselves and that of nature in shaping the world in which they live.

Approach to Geography

Learning knowledge is not an endpoint in itself, it is a springboard to learning more knowledge. Each unit in our overview is underpinned by rich, substantive knowledge and ambitious vocabulary, whilst also ensuring children are developing their disciplinary knowledge to support them to 'think like a geographer'.

At St Anne's Catholic Primary School, the teaching of the geography curriculum has been carefully considered to enable our pupils to become inquisitive geographers. Using the national curriculum, we have developed a progression document in which objectives for each year group are progressively mapped out to ensure our pupils are given the acquired skills and knowledge to further their education journey into KS3 and life beyond the classroom.

In EYFS, children begin to develop their geographical knowledge by exploring features of our school and nursery. a range of maps are used to investigate different places as they begin to compare and contrast different environments, both real and fictional. Children have rich opportunities to make use of school grounds to enhance and apply their skills as geographers. Throughout the year, children observe and discuss the weather and seasonal changes. Children also learn about the different jobs which people do in our community.

In KS1, children build on these strong foundations as they develop their knowledge of their local area of Chelmsley Wood, the United Kingdom, its capital cities and surrounding seas, and the seven continents and five oceans of the wider world. A fieldwork investigation on weather and a study on hot and cold places around the world supports subsequent learning about climate in KS2. Pupils learn basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness.

In KS2, an introduction to settlements, tectonic processes and hydrological and climatic processes introduce Year 3 pupils to concepts, vocabulary and knowledge that is capitalised on in subsequent years, laying important foundations of much of their future geographical learning.

When pupils study Migration in Year 4, they will utilise their knowledge of settlement types in order to deepen their understanding of migration patterns. This knowledge and understanding support their comprehension of why communities develop around areas of rich natural resources, and how slums develop.

The Natural Resources unit then feeds into the Year 5 unit on Energy and Sustainability, by supporting pupils’ understanding of where energy comes from and how greater sustainability can be achieved.

The Year 6 units on Population and Globalisation draw on themes that have been explored throughout KS2, so pupils are really able to approach these complex topics with a great depth and breadth of knowledge.

The Rivers unit in Year 4 follows on from the Water, Weather and Climate unit and pupils then continue to build on this knowledge of physical processes through the Biomes unit.

The Local Fieldwork unit is in Year 6, so that pupils are exposed to geographical research in KS2. This is a crucial part of a child’s geographical education and we have intentionally incorporated this unit at the end of KS2 to capitalise on their greater maturity and geographical knowledge.

The Importance of Local Geography

We believe strongly that children should have a first-hand geographical understanding of their local area. This is why local geography and fieldwork is woven into our history curriculum to ensure it is explicitly taught and that links with larger geographical themes are made. For example, Year 1 look at their local area beginning with a field study of the school grounds.  Year 4 develop their understanding of rivers through a visit to the River Cole. In Year 6 children further develop their understanding of why and how geographers do fieldwork before planning a fieldwork study of their own linked to the locality.

Linking Curriculum and Pedagogy

We have developed our pedagogy and curriculum to teach memorably and make learning stick. At the heart of our approach is retrieval practice. Retrieval practice involves deliberately recalling knowledge from memory to enhance learning.  Each time a memory is retrieved, it is strengthened and less likely to be forgotten. If we wish our curriculum to build over time, then we need to teach in a way that makes knowledge ‘stick’. retrieval practice is a staple classroom strategy used to ensure children are regularly recalling and reviewing previously taught concepts to ensure they are not forgotten and thus can be built upon. For example, in Year 3 begin to learn about population distribution in a study of villages, towns and cities. This is then built upon in Year 5 when children look at inadequate living conditions in city slums and further developed in Year 6 through a study of the challenges presented by a growing global population.

Curriculum Enrichment

Where possible, units of work for geography are enriched by real life experiences.  For example, in Year 1 when studying the 'Local Area' children go on a field trip to the town centre and in Year 4, when studying rivers, children go on a field trip to the River Cole. In Year 6, children plan their own fieldwork linked within the local area. 

Additionally, we benefit from a secure wild area in our school grounds which has a small pond to enable hands-on fieldwork. 

Extra-curricular

Gardening club 

Eco Warriers

Reading Across the Curriculum

In order to develop children's reading skills, our teaching staff plan opportunities for children to independently read age-appropriate texts that link to the geography topic being studied, or topics that have been previously studied. 

Becoming an Eco School

At St Anne's, we encourage all children to develop an awareness of environmental topics in the classroom that can impact our world. We provide children with an opportunity to take leadership of environmental issues in our school and local community. The Eco Schools programme allows schools to embark on a path towards improving both the environment in both school and the local community while at the same time having a positive impact on the lives of pupils, their families and school staff.

Climate Change Project

​​​​​​Aspirations For The Future

Pupils develop an understanding of how subjects and specific skills are linked to future jobs. 

Here are some of the jobs you could aspire to do in the future as a Geographer:
· Marine Biologist
· Helicopter Mission Controller
· Forester
· Farmer

- University lecturer/ teacher

- Cartographer

- Climate Change Analyst

-Town Planner

For more careers, please visit First Careers.

Impact - How Do We Know Our Geography Curriculum is Effective?

Monitoring and Evaluation

To monitor and evaluate geography the subject leader:

• Supports teachers via explaining the progressive curriculum map, discussing the key concepts in geography, co-planning, team teaching, observing and giving feedback
• Monitors teachers' medium-term planning against the progression contained in the curriculum map
• Reviews resource provision
• Works co-operatively with the SENDCo
• Discusses regularly with the Headteacher and (if applicable) the geography governor, the progress with implementing this policy in the school.

Assessment

Through the explicit teaching of Geography knowledge and skills, both the teachers and the pupils assess their learning continuously throughout the lesson. The impact of learning is measured against the key components and key objectives within a sequence of learning and is a measure of how much knowledge has been acquired. This may be through use of quick quiz assessments or longer written or oral outcomes to demonstrate understanding. Regular monitoring of work and pupil voice is used to moderate judgements which are made. Children also enjoy presenting their learning/ homework projects to others at the end of a unit.

Our assessment systems enable teachers to make informed judgements about the depth of their learning and the progress they have made over time.