Geography

At St Clements Primary School we strive to create a Geography Curriculum which we believe helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world through opportunities to question, investigate and debate important geographical issues which will impact the immediate locality, nearby regions and the wider world. 

We aim to help develop children's curiosity in both their immediate surroundings and in places and environments in the wider world.  Our purpose is to encourage an interest, fascination, and desire to investigate a variety of human and physical characteristics of different places, both local and afar, through purposeful research and careful questioning.  We provide children with many opportunities to use a range of geographical skills to help them understand, present, analyse and communicate a range of information; either collaboratively or as an individual. These skills are put into practice both inside and outside the classroom, through local fieldwork and trips. 

Our whole curriculum is shaped by our school values.  We use our skills and knowledge progression document and the subject overview to ensure we fully cover the National Curriculum expectations.  These documents ensure that skills and knowledge are built on year by year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children from Early Years Foundation Stage to the end of Year 6.  It is important that children develop the skills of a geographer by fully immersing themselves all areas of the subject. The local area is fully utilised to achieve desired outcomes, with opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practise.  There is so much on our doorstep to bring geographical learning alive.  School trips and fieldwork are provided to give first-hand experiences, which enhance children’s understanding of the world beyond their locality. 

By the time children leave St Clements Primary School they will:  

• Have an excellent knowledge of a range of places globally and locally, including their location about other places, understanding that these are interdependent and interconnected with one another.  
• Develop their knowledge and understanding of humans and the natural environment and how they affect one another.  
• Have an extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.  
•   Be fluent in complex, geographical enquiry, and can apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques. 
• Can reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.
•  Have significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity as shown in interpretations and representations of the subject matter.  
• Be highly developed at utilising fieldwork and other geographical skills and techniques. 
• Have a passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there. 
• Can express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding of current and contemporary issues in society and the environment.

Geography is taught utilising the Kapow schemes of work and following our whole school overview. This curriculum inspires pupils to become curious and explorative thinkers with a diverse knowledge of the world; in other words, to think like a geographer. We want pupils to develop the confidence to question and observe places, measure and record necessary data in various ways, and analyse and present their findings.   

Our curriculum encourages: 

• A strong focus on developing both geographical skills and knowledge.
• Critical thinking, with the ability to ask perceptive questions and explain and analyse evidence.
• The development of fieldwork skills across each year group.
• A deep interest and knowledge of pupils’ locality and how it differs from other areas of the world.
• A growing understanding of geographical terms and vocabulary.

The National Curriculum states: 

“A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils 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. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the framework and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.” 

The national curriculum for geography aims to ensure that all pupils: 

• 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 are 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. 

From these aims, the scheme identifies four key strands which run through the scheme to ensure that children are taught a broad and balanced curriculum. These strands compromise of 

• Locational knowledge
• Place knowledge
• Human and physical geography
• Geographical skills and fieldwork

Within these strands, Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme has a clear progression of skills and knowledge across each year group. The Progression of skills and knowledge shows how children's learning is underpinned and developed, ensuring that children are continuously given opportunities to revise and build on their previous learning, helping children to make links, to draw on their own experiences and to support learning retention within the long-term memory.  

Lessons incorporate various teaching strategies from independent tasks to paired and group work, including practical hands-on, computer-based and collaborative tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that all pupils can access learning, and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required. 

Through the Kapow scheme of work, we aim to build an awareness of how Geography shapes our lives at multiple scales and over time. We hope to encourage pupils to become resourceful, active citizens of our community who will have the skills as geographers to contribute to and improve the world around them.  

Whole School Geography Overview