Intent
At Houghton Regis Primary School, we aim to grow children’s geographical vocabulary, increase their knowledge and expand upon their curiosity of the wider world. We aim to provide transferable skills and knowledge that allows our children to be sustainable global citizens who can show change in their everyday lives, both locally and nationally. Within our curriculum, our learners will widen their understanding of locational and place knowledge both human and physical geography. They will also be provided with the opportunity to learn and apply a range of fieldwork and map skills. As well as this, we wish to provide practical and investigative experiences both inside and outside of the classroom through a range of fieldwork, trips and activities. We seek to inspire a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.
Implementation
Our inspiring curriculum encourages our children to provoke and provide answers to questions about the wider human and physical world around them. Based upon the National Curriculum and the needs of our children, we have created a long-term Geography progression and skills map that demonstrates the relevant knowledge and skills that our children will learn from Reception to Year 6. Within our long-term overviews, we have further created knowledge and skills organisers that pin point the appropriate knowledge, skills and vocabulary that will be acquired throughout the children’s time at Houghton Regis Primary School.
Geography is taught every other half-term and embeds the relevant skills and knowledge the children need to acquire by the end of each Key Stage. We alternate our geography and history topics to ensure that our children receive well-rounded teaching of the humanities subjects throughout the year. At times, we take the opportunity to create links between other subjects, such as computing to further develop relevant geographical skills and knowledge. We showcase and record our learning, in our geography topic books and on our display boards. Relevant and age appropriate maps, globes and atlases are displayed and are available in each classroom. Teachers are encouraged to reference and use these when appropriate to develop the children’s awareness of the world around them. Resources are audited, reviewed and evaluated to ensure they are appropriate and impactful.
Our curriculum allows each year group to apply and embed relevant fieldwork and map skills. We support learning with some local and national trips that aim to deepen our children’s understanding. For example, in Key Stage One, local fieldwork within and outside the school grounds is provided to develop the children’s understanding of their local area. In Key Stage Two, trips to a range of local and national areas including coastal areas support understanding of human and physical geography as well as developing crucial fieldwork and map skills.
Impact
The impact of our Geography curriculum is measured in a variety of ways including: thoughtful and provoking questions during lesson time; following our marking policy to ensure that geographical knowledge and skills are continuously developing
We use both formative and summative assessment within lessons and after specific units to monitor our children’s understanding and to ensure that all pupils are achieving their best.
National Geographic Kids – https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/teacher-category/geography/
BBC Bitesize – https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z2f3cdm
Geographical Association – https://www.geography.org.uk/teaching-resources/early-years-and-primary-resources
SCOLINET = https://www.scoilnet.ie/primary/theme-pages/geography/
World Geography Games – https://world-geography-games.com/
BBC Weather – https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather
Ordnance Survey Maps – https://explore.osmaps.com/?lat=51.776100&lon=-1.894300&zoom=7.0000&style=Standard&type=2d
Digimaps – https://digimap.edina.ac.uk/
