Geography
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Intent
At South Crosland Junior School, our Geography curriculum supports all children in developing a deep and meaningful understanding of the world they live in. It should spark a lifelong curiosity and appreciation of places and people they have never experienced before and raise big questions about the local and international environment and its future.
As our children navigate on through their learning journey from Year 3 to Year 6 and beyond, we strive to embed in them a range of progressive and transferable skills that they will build upon through their study of different and interesting topics. The areas of study that we have carefully selected, enhance our children’s understanding of their local, national and global identity. Our children will gain confidence in identifying and explaining our Earth’s key physical and human processes and use atlases and maps efficiently to locate, describe and compare places within their local area and those in the wider world.
Our children take part in planned local fieldwork activities in order to investigate and experience geographical processes and local environmental concerns first hand. Not only does this develop important geographical skills, it creates invaluable opportunities for our children to investigate and follow their own lines of enquiry and subsequently express, compare and debate their ideas respectfully with their peers in the classroom.
Above all, we believe that a high quality, engaging and enriching Geography curriculum is key to supporting our children in becoming open-minded, compassionate and tolerant global citizens, who have an appreciation of other cultures and ways of life.
Implementation
Geography at South Crosland Junior School is taught in individual year groups and follows a two-year cycle. Topics have been selected and planned intelligently, in line with the National Curriculum, in order that key geographical skills can be revisited and built upon throughout the children’s time at our school. This ensures that each child can achieve depth and confidence in each Geography objective.
At the beginning of each Geography lesson, children are encouraged to share what they know already about a given topic and are given opportunities to express what they would like to subsequently find out. This helps each teacher to ensure that lessons are relevant to the context of the group that they are teaching, and also makes them aware of the different starting points for each child.
Activities are chosen and distributed by each teacher to ensure that every child can access the key learning objective and the skills required for each lesson, and also so that an appropriate level of challenge is provided for each child. Lessons are planned to be active. Children are provided with opportunities to research using: technology, atlases, other topic books and a range of digital and physical maps.
Fieldwork opportunities are planned into topics, so that our children are able to learn Geography in a hands-on way and we utilise the physical geographical features of our local area effectively – to ensure this learning and these experiences stay with them for life.
Another way in which we ensure that Geography learning and teaching has a positive impact on not just the education of our pupils, but on the ‘whole child’ too, is through our use of ‘Big Questions’. These are planned into appropriate topics and they provide our children with essential opportunities to discuss geographical matters, both human and physical, in the wider world and relate them to their own viewpoints and experiences.
During the children’s time at our school, the whole school takes part in a Geography themed ‘World Culture Week’ helping to raise the profile of Geography as a subject across our school. During this week, themed lessons are taught that relate to different cultures around the world and to the children’s context at the time. These could include: Mexico, Pakistan, Iceland and China. As well as learning about some key geographical features of these nations, children also get the opportunity to study features of their cultures which they may not have been able to learn about otherwise, such as: their language, values, customs, folklore and traditions. This week is successful in developing their understanding and appreciation of the world around them and their local context.
Impact
Through the effective planning and teaching of an enriching and stimulating Geography curriculum, our pupils are able to leave Key Stage 2 equipped with the necessary geographical skills and knowledge that will support them throughout the rest of their learning journey and later in life, as an adult in the wider world. They will have a strong awareness of key environmental and humanitarian issues and a broad understanding of other cultures and customs different to their own. This supports them to become the open-minded, compassionate and tolerant global citizens that we strive for them to be.
Assessment and Reporting
Formative assessment in Geography is ongoing and takes many forms, which may include: discussions with children; children’s responses; explanations and justification of thoughts; written work; and reports and presentations.
Summative assessment occurs at the end of each topic. Achievement and attitude to learning are reported on to parents and carers three times each year, as part of School Reporting Calendar (December, March and July).
Assessment information is kept by the Geography Leader and shared with Senior Leaders.