Geography

FPS Geography Curriculum Statement

Intent
At Flintham Primary School we deliver a broad and balanced Geography Curriculum, which is matched to the National Curriculum objectives. Our geography curriculum is designed to provide children with the opportunity to develop an enquiry and investigative approach to geography. This approach will enable them to build their knowledge and understanding of the UK and the wider World through a geographical lens. Each unit of study is designed to revisit and build on knowledge of previous learning and build and develop new skills and knowledge to show progression to the end of year Key Stage expectations.
The Geographical key concepts are the main focus of our progressive curriculum and will be embedded across all year groups. This vocabulary is also specific to a particular key concept, for example vegetation, season and weather are all physical aspects of geography.
Our curriculum enables children to make links to their own lives (study of our local area) and the wider world (comparisons between our local area and a location outside of the UK) and also to other curriculum subjects (particularly links with History and Art).
It is our intent for each child to develop the following strands of geographical understanding:
GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE: The main facts and substantive knowledge for that unit
GEOGRAPHICAL LENS: The key concepts; the unit specific geographical vocabulary and the topic specific knowledge coverage.

Weaved into each unit of study are our key concepts:
1. Physical geography
2. Human geography
3. Change and sustainability
4. Space and scale
5. Map skills
6. Field skills

Implementation
Our geography Curriculum is mapped by units of work across whole school in line with National Curriculum objectives. For each unit of work there is an overview with an enquiry question title. The overviews outline the WOW starter, key knowledge, specific vocabulary and the coverage of the geographical key concepts.

EYFS:
The ELG which demonstrates the key skills for geography within the national curriculum is ‘Understanding the World’ and the two areas of ‘People, Culture and Communities’ and ‘The Natural World’. The objectives in both areas are weaved in to the programmes of study.

Key Stage 1:
Local Area-including map and fieldwork
UK knowledge
Comparisons between UK and location outside of the UK

Key Stage 2:
UK and World Knowledge –including map and field work
Human and physical aspects of UK geography
Human and physical aspects of world geography

Teachers plan their units of work following our overview structure and the whole school two-year plan. Where there is a linked History unit, our curriculum planning enables these to run concurrently, precede or be subsequent to the relevant geography unit. The plans and objectives enable progression and consistency throughout the school. The planning and resources are kept on the computer system and each year group has the ability to also look at other year group’s planning and AREs to make sure progression, coverage and learning is being taught. This also enables teachers to share planning and resources within the school.

Each teacher has started to produce Knowledge Organisers (KOs) for each unit in Geography and these are given out to the parents and children before the topic begins. A KO sets out the important, useful and powerful knowledge regarding topic on a single page. Their purpose is to provide an organised foundation of the factual knowledge needed in a particular unit of work and facilitate our pupils being able to retrieve and apply this new knowledge. They also help children to focus on specific questions relating to the topic and coverage within each year group.
A further purpose of the KO is to provide spaced retrieval opportunities to transfer key learning from pupils’ short term to long term memory. This is achieved by low stake quizzing and presenting the children with gaps in the KO to assess what has been remembered at appropriate times in the learning sequence. The KO can also be used as an assessment tool at the end of the unit and outcomes can then be used to inform assessment of Geography at the end of the academic year.

Where we can, and often forming our WOW starter, we include class geography days, trips and visitors to school that link with topics furthering the children’s excitement and enthusiasm about our Geography Curriculum.

Impact
Teacher assessment, books, pupil interviews and KO assessments are used to assess and record the progress that pupils are making in terms of knowing more, remembering more and being able to do more at the end of each academic year. It is important that geography assessments go beyond the recalling of facts but also assess the children’s geographical thinking; ‘the geographical lens’, and assess children’s growing understanding of geographical concepts such as human and physical geography, change and sustainability, space and scale, map and field skills. They can then use this understanding to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame geographical valid questions and create their own reasoning and explanations, including written narratives and analyses where necessary. It is also important that the children have gained an understanding of geographical change over time, including human impact, and can use this evidence to develop a well-informed personal view point.

These judgements will be quality assured by the subject leader using first-hand evidence of how pupils are doing, drawing together evidence from pupil interviews, observations of tasks, work scrutiny and discussions with pupils about what they remembered about the content they have studied.

These judgements will inform the curriculum and whether children are ready for the next stage of their education.

Please see below for our Geography mapping and progression documents.