Geography
Vision
‘The study of geography is about more than just memorizing places on a map. It's about understanding the complexity of our world, appreciating the diversity of cultures that exists across continents. And in the end, it's about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together.’ Barack Obama
At Barrow Hill Primary Academy, we want our children to love geography, appreciate the world around them and spark curiosity to learn about new places.
Geography Curriculum Intent
Our aim is that, through the teaching of Geography at Barrow Hill, we provide a purposeful platform for exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. We want to ensure that through Geography, children are able to explore the relationship between the Earth and its people through the study of place, space and environment.
The geography curriculum enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We want children to foster a local and world-wide knowledge, developing an understand of their place in the world.
We seek to inspire in children to develop confidence, to be inquisitive, to be independent, resilient learners and build a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people, which will remain with them for the rest of their lives, equipping them well for further education and beyond in a 21st century world
Geography Curriculum Implementation
At Barrow Hill Primary Academy, Geography is taught as part of a two year cycle for each age phase and these are mapped out over the long term plan. This ensures the content of the National Curriculum has been covered by the end of each phase. We alternate our focus between Geography and History ensuring that our children receive sufficient time to develop their skills and knowledge of the humanities subjects over two years. The Geography Knowledge Progression document is used alongside the Grammarsaurus scheme of work to support with planning and assessment. This ensures that knowledge and skills are developed over a period of time. S plans are created by the class teacher and shared with the children throughout the journey. The curriculum is sequenced and lessons are crafted to ensure that learning steps are connected to previous knowledge gained.
Children record their learning journey’s in a humanities book and upload digital content to Class Dojo. Our whole school oracy focus underpins our vocabulary rich Geography Curriculum. Teachers use targetted questioning and provide opportunities for discussion and investigation to support the development of vocabulary. This is explicitly taught and modelled by teachers and is often reinforced through cross curricular links in writing.
We support learning with educational visits to inspire our children and widen their cultural experiences. This starts with the youngest children spending time on local walks and visiting the local town then as the children get older, visiting different towns, cities and the coast. This enables the children to compare different locations to their local area. Teachers use a range of resources to bring Geography to life including videos, photographs, articles and high quality websites.
We are developing our use of Knowledge Organisers to ensure that ‘sticky knowledge’ and ‘key vocabulary’ are embedded into the learning journey sequence. This also supports teachers when assessing what the children have remembered and is a useful visual prompt when revisiting prior learning.
To raise the profile of Geography, cross curricular links are made to other subjects. These links must be a high-quality geographical experience and can only occur if geographical skills and knowledge are at the core. For example:
- Mathematics - Read and plot co-ordinates, explore positional language, compare statistical information, produce charts and graphs to share information, analyse information presented
- Art, music, religious education, food technology - Explored when learning about a new place
- History – changes to settlements and land use over time, key historical events linked to natural disasters
- Science – sustainability and climate change, weather and climate, rocks, soils, land use
- English – Reading from different sources, sharing knowledge through presentations, discussions, written forms and digital
- Computing – using programs to share information digitally to communicate with wider audiences, researching information, questioning the authenticity and accuracy of information on the internet
- Languages – learn about the different languages around the world and predominant languages in different countries
Geography Curriculum Impact
The impact of our Geography curriculum is measured in a variety of ways: questioning during lesson time, marking children’s written work, listening to child-led discussion, interviewing children across the school about their learning, work scrutiny and using images/videos of children’s practical learning. The Knowledge Progression document and Knowledge Organisers will support teachers making judgements about children’s attainment and progress.
By end of the Geography curriculum at Barrow Hill, our children will:
- Have a growing knowledge of the world and their place in it.
- Have a wider vocabulary of geographical terms.
- Aspire to discover more about the world, through reading, travel or the media.
- Know that they can use their voice to express themselves and their opinions.
- Develop their geographical skills, such as, evaluation, creativity, problem solving and enquiry.