Geography
Our Vision…
At Carfield, we aim for our pupils to be curious and fascinated by the natural world around us and appreciate how their actions, at this current point in time, impact future generations. We want them to recognise how places are intrinsically interconnected by both human and physical features and understand their place in the world. As a staff, we wish to inspire our children to take an interest in their local environment and be able to articulate their thoughts and feelings to motivate others. We want our children to have no limits to their ambitions and grow up wanting to be cartographers, town planners, conservationists, weather forecasters and more.
Intent
At Carfield, we know that geography is essential in ensuring that children understand the world in which they live. As pupils progress, they will increase their knowledge of the world as well as their place in it. Geography is an investigative subject and therefore our curriculum will encourage children’s curiosity and fascination about the world, giving them the enquiry skills they need to find out more. Our goal is that children advance their knowledge and curiosity about the physical and human characteristics of the world by developing:
- knowledge of diverse places, people, resources, spaces and environments;
- understanding off the processes that cause and change the human and physical features of the world; and
- geographical enquiry skills.
As a subject, geography impacts upon every aspect of our children’s lives and plays a crucial role in developing caring and understanding citizens of tomorrow who are able to express well-balanced opinions about current issues affecting society and the environment locally, nationally and globally.
Implementation
- Geography is taught half-termly with lessons building on prior learning – this allows the children to make meaningful connections within and across the subject areas and enables them to remember more over time. These lessons are 90 minutes in duration in KS2 and 60 minutes in KS1.
- Each lesson starts with well-thought through retrieval questions to enable the children to recall knowledge from last year, last term and last week.
- To develop a sense of location, the lesson then includes approximately 10 minutes of map based activities. These have been carefully sequenced from KS1 through to KS2 to allow for over-learning and constant repetition. The children are shown the same maps three times each year to allow them to monitor their progress.
- Any subject specific vocabulary is shared with the children and definitions are given for words that are relevant for that lesson.
- Pupils are taught through clear modelling and have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and understanding of geographical concepts using the most appropriate geographical language/terminology.
- Oracy is positively encouraged and children are provided with keywords and sentence starters to allow them to be successful when recording their learning in their books.
- Each year group undertakes a fieldwork unit and all children have access to learning outside of the classroom as part of these units.
Impact
- Children demonstrate a quick recall of facts and procedures – fluency. This includes the recollection of the key facts from each unit of work.
- Children have the ability to make connections in geography lessons and develop their understanding of how places (and subjects) are interconnected.
- Carfield pupils will understand the impact that they have on the planet and be able to articulate how important it is to live sustainably.
- Children will also be left with the desire to travel and explore our diverse world, to protect and secure this for future generations.