Geography
Intent
At Fir Bank Primary School, it is our intention that Geography will inspire pupils with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them throughout their lives. We aim to offer opportunities to explore their locality and the world in order to develop an understanding of the human and physical world in which they live in and their place within it. We aim to promote the children’s interest and understanding about diverse places, people, resources and human processes. It is our intention that Geography will promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helping them to have a greater understanding of their place in the world, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment. Geographical knowledge and skills are progressive and are sequenced to provide explanations and to inspire children’s curiosity and question the world around them.
Implementation
At Fir Bank, Geography is taught in every year group, in half termly topics of which year 1-5 have 3 per year. Topics are blocked to allow children to focus on developing their knowledge and skills, studying each topic in depth. We have developed a progression of skills with each year group, which enables pupils to build on and develop their skills each year. All lessons start with retrieval practise to allow the children to draw upon their prior knowledge and learning from previous year groups and topics. At the start of each topic children will review previous learning and will have the opportunity to share what they already know about a current topic. Children are given opportunities to carry out fieldwork in school grounds and local area. Through using a range of assessment tools, adaptations are made by teachers, to ensure that each pupil can access the Geography curriculum. At the end of each topic, children complete an assessment task which demonstrates their learning from each topic.
Impact
Evidence of a broad and balances geography curriculum which demonstrates children’s acquisition of identified through sticky knowledge and skills.
Children are able to review their successes in achieving the lesson objectives and are actively encouraged to identify their own areas of development.
As children progress throughout school, they develop a deep knowledge, understanding and appreciation of their local area and its place within the wider geographical context.
We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods;
Learning walks and professional dialogue with teachers.
- Accessing children’s understanding of vocabulary before and after the ‘knowledge and skills’ have been taught.
- Images and videos of the children’s practical learning (books/ class floor book/displays)
- Interviewing children about their learning (pupil voice).
- Moderation staff meetings where pupil’s books/ class floor book are scrutinised and there is an opportunity for dialogue between teachers and to discuss the learning and teaching in their class.