Vision
It is our intent for the Geography element of our school curriculum to inspire children with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip the children with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. We stimulate children’s minds by asking challenging questions and require the children to use and apply their knowledge to demonstrate a deep understanding of the issues and topics. We want our children to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be cartographers, town planners, conservationists or weather forecasters.
Intent
We believe that high-quality, hand on geography lessons will inspire children to think innovatively and develop their natural curiosity. Our geography curriculum encourages children to develop a coherent knowledge and understanding of their own locality, Britain and the wider world. Pupils should be clear about what the intended outcomes are and have the means to measure their own work against this. In geography, children are expected to be reflective about their thinking. This should be made meaningful and as real as possible throughout the process, with evidence of ability-related verbal and written reflection. Geography at Bank View is developed to equip pupils to think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgment. The pupils will gain knowledge of where they live, Britain, and our place in the world.
Medium Term plans are developed to ensure good coverage and progression.
Implementation
Geography is taught mainly through a topic-based approach and gives pupils a chance to explore a wide range of sources from which geography may come alive. This will include a range of out-of-school visits, workshops, visitors and artefacts. In the EYFS, geography activities involve learning about the people and the places in the world we live in, so they can try to make sense of the world around them. In KS1 and KS2, a two-year cycle is planned to provide wide coverage. Teachers plan geography carefully using the objectives from the national curriculum that form our medium-term plans, which are then transferred onto a progression map for each cross-curricular topic. Teachers can see what skills and knowledge have been taught previously. The protected characteristics are also considered throughout. Teachers are provided with medium-term plans which are developed to ensure good progression and depth.
Impact
Our geography curriculum is of high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum outcomes, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through a reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes; a celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school; assessment of the skills and knowledge with our domain sheets and pupil discussions about their learning. Teachers recap on previous learning through questions at the beginning of a new unit of work; know more remember more. New learning is continually revisited by the teachers to embed.
