Geography

Intent

At Queen’s Manor Primary School, we aim to deliver a high-quality geography curriculum, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits, which inspires in pupils a curiosity about the world and its people.

We wish to instil a love for Geography in our pupils and develop their knowledge of the world, as well as their place within it, and encourage them to undertake new experiences throughout their life.
We aim to provide all pupils with opportunities to investigate and build geographical expertise from their local area to the wider world. This includes locational knowledge, understanding of human and physical features and geographical and fieldwork techniques.
We will encourage pupils to ask questions and propose solutions to environmental problems within the local community and the wider world. Increasing awareness of environmental issues and the impact humans have aims to encourage pupils to become reflective members of society who consider their actions/choices and actively invest in protecting the planet.

The Queen’s Manor Curriculum for geography provides all children, regardless of their background, with:

Relevant and coherent substantive knowledge of the world that is built gradually using subject-specific pedagogy from EYFS to Year 6 and beyond.
Substantive knowledge is selected to build pupils’ understanding of three geographical vertical concepts:

Location and place

The location of the world’s continents, countries and places, and the key physical and human characteristics of each

Geographical scale

Considering the local, national and global scale and understanding how causes and effects occur at all scales

Interconnections

How are the human and physical worlds connected? How are different locations connected at different scales?

A balanced view of the countries of the world, to address misconceptions and negative stereotypes.
Explicit teaching of core disciplinary knowledge, and the ability to approach challenging, geographically-valid questions. Geographical enquiry skills have been sequenced across the year groups and, where appropriate, review and build on relevant knowledge that is first taught in mathematics or science, such as interpreting line graphs or setting hypotheses.
Opportunities to undertake fieldwork, outside the classroom and virtually. Fieldwork is purposeful, and either gives pupils the opportunity to explicitly practise relevant disciplinary knowledge or to reinforce substantive knowledge.

Implementation

As part of the planning process, teachers plan the following:   

A knowledge organiser which outlines knowledge (including vocabulary) all children must master and apply in lessons 
A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth concentrating on the geographical skills suited to the age group 
Low stakes quizzes which are used regularly to support learners’ ability to retrieve and recall knowledge and increase space in the working memory
Challenge questions for pupils to apply their learning in a philosophical/open manner 
Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience  
Appropriate curriculum themed home learning tasks which children complete with adults at home

Impact

Our Geography Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods: 

A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes 
A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school 
Tracking of gains in each quiz; 
Pupil discussions about their learning;

Our Geography curriculum is also planned in a way which promotes the cultural capital of all our children. We enhance our curriculum especially for the most disadvantaged by organising fieldwork opportunities, guest speakers and keeping up to date with current local and worldwide events that happen at the current time.

How we teach geography

As with every subject, we recognise what makes geography unique, and as a result make pedagogical choices to ensure teaching is the best it can possibly be.

We have captured our pedagogical choice for geography in our geography principles which can be seen below:

How you can help your child at home

EYFS and Key Stage 1

Encourage your child to observe the world around them. On a walk talk about how some houses and buildings look older than others.
Talk about your route to school or the shops. What do you see on the way? Can you draw what you see? Can you draw a simple may?
Look at a map of the UK- where you do live? Have you lived anywhere else?
Visit Regents Park and compare it to your local area. How does it look different to Bishop’s Park? How are the sounds that you can hear different to the sounds in your local area?

Key Stage 2

Visit the National Geographic Kidsfor the most amazing videos and facts about our wonderful world, along with fun competitions, games and more!
The Ordnance Survey Mapzoneis full of lively online activities and games that children can play, which also develop their map skills and knowledge.
Explore the wild park of woodland and meadows of Hampstead Heath. Why not fly a kite from the top of Parliament Hill?
Visit the Natural History Museumand explore the Volcanoes and Earthquakes section. Be sure to check out the earthquake simulator, showing what it was like during the 1995 Kobe, Japan earthquake

Learning