Halstead Community Primary School

Intent

Our Geography Curriculum embodies our values of:

Personal Excellence by ensuring the children make progress in the geographical knowledge and skills to investigate, question and begin to understand the world and explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time

Respect and Friendship by ensuring children have knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. Children know how other countries and cultures shape our world and to learn to respect this.

Inspiration by engaging and inspiring the children to ask questions about the word around them and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives as well as foster a curiosity and fascination about the world.

Determination and Courage by challenging children to ask questions about their own and other environments and encouraging them to think critically about environmental issues.

Equality by using a developing geographical knowledge of the world and a growing understanding of other cultures to inspire, engage and challenge the children and deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes.

The children learn geography within the International Primary Curriculum topics and, wherever possible, make links with other curriculum areas. The children are encouraged to reflect upon geographical and environmental issues.

Implementation

At Halstead Community Primary School children in key stage 1 will develop knowledge about the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They will understand basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness.

The children will be taught:

·       to identify features of their own environment and compare to a contrasting environment.

·       to identify seasonal and daily weather patterns and compare to a contrasting climate.

·       to identify and begin to understand physical and human features.

·       to identify and name the four countries of the UK and the seven continents and five oceans.

Then in key stage 2 the children will extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom and Europe, North and South America. This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features. They will develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge.

The children will be taught:

·        to develop their geographical language and to use more complex mapping skills.

·        to understand why there are similarities and differences between places and how different places relate to each other.

·       to explain weather patterns around Europe and the UK.

·       to explain how changes in the environment can have a positive or negative affect and explore for solutions.

Key skills and knowledge for Geography have been mapped across the school to ensure progression across the key stages in two year cycles. The lessons are taught as part of the International Primary Curriculum topics.

Impact

Through our Geography curriculum, the children will:

·       develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes

·       understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time

·       become competent in the geographical skills needed to:

         ·       collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes

         ·       interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)

         ·       communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.

Therefore our curriculum will deepen their understanding of the interaction between human and physical processes and how this affects landscapes and environments.