Geography Curriculum Intent

Geography is the study of our physical and human environment through the processes which shape it and the people who live in it. It is a fundamental subject to help pupils understand their links with, and effects on, the natural world and their links with other people in the wider world.

This policy has been developed in consultation with all our staff and has been approved by the governors.  It has been developed with the geographical site and situation of the school in mind.

The implementation of this policy is the responsibility of all teaching staff.

Geography teaches children the enquiry skills pertinent to developing a robust assimilation of places and environments. Through their work in geography, children will enhance locational and place knowledge required to accurately identify continents, countries, major cities (including capital cities), seas and key physical features (rivers, mountains, coasts, landmarks), utilising a range of research methods such as maps, atlases, globes and digital computer mapping. Upon deepening an understanding of the world around them, children progress onto learning about their local area through investigative fieldwork pedagogy (sketch maps, plans and graphs) to compare their life in this area with that in other regions in the United Kingdom and in the rest of the world. Additionally, children gain an appreciation of life in other cultures. Geography teaching also motivates children to find out about the world and enables them to recognize the importance of sustainable development.

Geography Curriculum Implementation

Teaching and learning is based on Rosenshine’s principles.  It is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively sufficient knowledge and skills for future learning. Prior learning is activated through the use of retrieval practice to ensure the children know more and learn more over time.

‘I do, we do, you do’ at Ightham Primary School

Knowledge lessons always begin with retrieval practice, followed by ‘I do’, then ‘We do’ then ‘You do’ to ensure a gradual release of responsibility.

Teachers continually assess throughout the lesson to ascertain children’s understanding and be prepared to move back a stage if required. Depending on the understanding of the children, ‘we do’ should be extended to ensure all children are secure in their knowledge. If the children are not ready, the teachers should not move onto ‘You do’. A knowledge lesson could be taught over more than one lesson as a result of assessment for learning where the ‘you do’ part is covered in a subsequent lesson.

Following knowledge lessons, children will be given the opportunity to apply the knowledge through enquiry and investigative tasks which need to be clearly modelled, scaffolded and adapted as required, to meet the needs of the individual children.

Our scheme of work is based on the geography National Curriculum (2014) and has been planned to ensure continuity and progression throughout the school.  We teach the key aspects of each unit of work in our scheme.             

In Key Stage 1 Geography is taught alongside History – there are three topics per year which should be used to cover a mixture of both History and Geography.

In Key Stage 2 Geography is taught in three separate blocks (rotating each term with History).

Links will be made with Design and Technology, Art, Drama, English, PSHE and Computing, where appropriate.