Geography

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“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Laozi

Our geography curriculum develops pupil’s fascination of the world and their place within it and builds on the Knowledge and Understanding of The World our children gain in EYFS. In our Early Years, pupils learn about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects and living things.

We have carefully designed our geography curriculum, which we have recently reviewed and refined using the latest Ofsted Research Review for Geography 2022. Our curriculum is centred around the ‘Big Ideas’ of: location, physical geography, climate, human geography, culture and diversity and sustainability.

Our geography curriculum clearly outlines the knowledge and skills pupils gain at each stage of their learning journey with clear endpoints that the curriculum is building towards. We have carefully sequenced these to help pupils progress well over time. We have high academic ambition for all of our pupils and we adapt this curriculum accordingly to meet the needs of all our children.

Our geography curriculum aims to create children who:

Are curious about the world and its people
Have an understanding of their place within the world and how they can impact upon this
Show tolerance and respect towards cultural differences and
Have a commitment to sustainable development and an appreciation of what ‘global citizenship’ means
Understand human and physical features in the world, including natural disasters and climate change
Are confident using a range of geography-based skills.

Key concepts are revisited so that children can develop a deeper understanding as they journey through the school. Meaningful links have been made vertically, horizontally and diagonally to build a 3D curriculum which allows children to make connections with other subjects across and within year groups and encourages retrieval.

Each unit of work begins with an overarching enquiry question. Learning then builds over a sequence of lessons to enable children to answer this overarching question. This approach provides opportunities for rich discussion and reflection. Throughout our curriculum, we provide children with opportunities to investigate their local area in order to help children think about their heritage and what makes our local area special.

Our geography curriculum is also supported through learning opportunities outside of the classroom, including visits and residentials. In addition, we promote geography through special events such as our annual Harvest Festival and World Environment Day.

In-depth studies of the local area, the UK and its regions, and places of global significance are studied to equip the children with knowledge and appreciation of diverse places and cultures. This further embeds our school ethos of ‘Everyone is equal, everyone is different, everyone is welcome and everyone achieves their best.’

Children develop a deep understanding of the world’s physical and human features and explore these through a creative and dynamic curriculum. Topic-specific vocabulary is taught throughout our curriculum using Knowledge Organisers to enable children to articulate their thoughts and ideas clearly.

By the end of KS2 pupils will have experienced a depth of learning in:

Locational knowledge
Place knowledge
Human and physical geography
Geographical skills and fieldwork

Children learn how to think, speak and work ‘like a geographer’ by developing their geographical skills over time through a variety of fieldwork activities. Our Geography Curriculum is enriched through our National Curriculum + offer, Cultural Capital and ’50 Fantastic Things’.

Fieldwork at LCPS

Children develop their understanding of how geographers think and work through being taught how to conduct geographical enquiries as well as developing key practical skills such as reading and drawing maps of different scales and sizes.

Children gain experience working with different types of maps and atlases with increasing complexity, including digital mapping software. Additionally, children undertake fieldwork following an enquiry approach using our LCPS ‘FIELD’ framework.

The Royal Geographical Association state that effective fieldwork is seamless to what is going on in the classroom. We have carefully crafted our fieldwork approach to ensure each opportunity interlinks with the classroom learning. For fieldwork, we utilise the local area.

This provides opportunities for learning through the lens of ‘community and identity’, supporting children to develop a deeper knowledge and appreciation of Middlesbrough and the surrounding areas.