Geography
In Geography, we aim to develop children’s sense of self within the world, exposing children to a wide range of places, many of which linking to their studied reading texts, or other places within the curriculum. Throughout the curriculum, units focus primarily on that of 4 main concepts.
The first of these is the concepts is place, with children studying the physical and human geography of spaces, in so that children can make meaning of them and how these features interact. The greater the meaning we have of geography, the more these space becomes place.
Throughout the curriculum we consider if something is at a local, national, international or global scale, zooming in and out on geographical phenomenon on different levels. We ensure, where appropriate, pupils understand how these varying scales can. For example, how an earthquake may impact places hundreds of miles away or how villages are connected to cities by trade, affecting the people who live there.
In addition, children study the distance between two locations and the distance between other geographic phenomena to understand why a place is the way it is and why places can be so different. This distance may be a physical distance or an imagined distance due to the interconnectedness of the world. E.g. how climate differs the further south/north you go from the equator, or how we spur to help ‘distant strangers’ through aid, charity and trade.
Finally, we aim to develop children’s relational thinking within Geography. We look at similarities and differences between contrasting geographies to come to geographic conclusions. E.G how resources are distributed unevenly, where the centre grows at the expense of the periphery, or how migration has impacted on the geographies of communities.
Within the geography curriculum, these second order concepts: place, scale, distance, and relationship are embedded within the units of work where appropriate as a lens, whereby children answer large geographical questions over the course of a term, so pupils can begin to think geographically.
In addition, there are substantive concepts (these are part of the ‘substance’ or content knowledge in a subject) which are repeated throughout the curriculum so students can interact and revisit key concepts and knowledge throughout the curriculum. These include concepts such biomes, environment, location, continents, human geography, physical geography, direction, landform, land-use, mapping, bodies of water, population, settlement, resources, vegetation, farming, agriculture, rural, urban, transportation, industry, tourism, economy, distribution, sustainability. These concepts provide a ‘hook’ and can be used in two ways: For you to explore a pupil’s prior knowledge and to ‘hang’ new knowledge from in schema.
Throughout the curriculum children will develop key geographical skills and disciplinary knowledge through the use of field work. Fieldwork is undertaken in all year groups, and has been designed to build in complexity as pupil’s, drawing upon a range of geographical skills as they progress. Additionally, in lessons, teachers provide tasks which provide pupil’s insight into being a geographer, such as the interpretation of graphs, data and articles.
