A member of Dales Academies Trust
Intent
At Ainderby Steeple CE Primary, we aim to deliver a high-quality Geography curriculum, which inspires children’s curiosity and fascination and encourages children to become explorative thinkers about our diverse world and its people. We strive to provide our children with opportunities to investigate a range of places at multiple scales and over time. We intend for our children to become confident at using key geographical skills across a range of contexts. Children will have the opportunity to collect and analyse data, interpret sources of geographical information (maps, globes, digital mapping etc) and to communicate geographical knowledge in a variety of ways. Our aim is to ignite a passion for learning about the world they live in, both locally, and worldwide and to understand the impact that humans have on the world. We seek to deepen our children’s understanding by encouraging them to ask and answer questions about their world and to provide them with the skills needed to become resourceful, active citizens who will contribute to and improve the world around them.
What does Geography look like at our school?
Implementation
Our Geography curriculum is based on National Curriculum objectives and is organised into four strands: locational knowledge; place knowledge; human and physical geography and geographical skills and fieldwork. Each year children will explore 3 open-ended enquiry questions and our 2-year rolling program has been developed to ensure a progression in skills and knowledge throughout the school. Children in Pre-School and Reception gain geographical knowledge through the Understanding the World strand of the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum and their progression is clearly identified on our whole school progression map. Essential knowledge and skills are revisited with increasing complexity as children progress through our school, allowing our children to revise and build on their previous learning. Cross-curricular links are included, allowing children to make connections and apply their Geography skills to other areas of learning. Fieldwork includes smaller opportunities on the school grounds to larger-scale visits to investigate key aspects of our geography curriculum. By regularly using our school grounds, fieldwork can be a regular and integral part of our curriculum. It is accessible for all and provides children with a thorough understanding of their locality: building a solid foundation when comparing it to other places.
Within lessons, we should see a clear structure building on the most up to date research on how children learn best.
Each lesson should focus around a mini-enquiry question. By the end of the lesson, children should have gained the knowledge and skills to be able to answer this, thus enabling the class teacher to assess. Following on from the mini-enquiry question, children will complete retrieval practise through the use of ‘Power up in 3’. This is where 3 pre-planned questions will be asked, drawing upon childrens learning from within the topic, from a previous topic and from a subject which has a link. This will solidify children’s working memory and build their schemata. After this, children will recite the 3 core knowledge facts from this topic and explore subject specific vocabulary. Children will then be presented with information to help them gain the knowledge and skills required to be able to answer the initial mini-enquiry question. Activities will be focussed and carefully planned. Where adaptation is needed, teachers can refer to the progression document to enable all pupils to be supported.
Cultural Capital
When exploring our enquiry questions, we aim to help develop children’s geographical knowledge of our local area and country. We have planned in opportunities to explore our local village, nearest town, Northallerton and local city, York. When exploring questions which relate to the wider world, we always try to include a more local element such as discovering that there are two extinct volcanoes in the Lake District and finding out which sea the tributary River Swale leads in to. To help our children understand how geography knowledge and skills can be used throughout their lives, opportunities to meet and talk to local geographers such as Alan Hinkes OBE and Andrew Vis will be made.
Opportunities to celebrate Geography
Where possible, learning is enhanced through drama, educational visits, workshops and visitors to school.
Impact
Our enquiry-based approach to teaching geography should enable pupils to leave Ainderby Steeple Primary School with a range of skills and knowledge to become competent geographers at Key Stage 3. Our Christian Values, which are interwoven into our curriculum, will shape our children to be respectful and responsible citizens of our world who have the resilience to tackle the challenges our world is facing in the future.
By the end of Year 6 children should be able to:
- Compare and contrast human and physical features to describe and understand similarities and differences between various places in the UK, Europe and the Americas.
- Name, locate and understand where and why the physical elements of our world are located and how they interact, including processes over time relating to climate, biomes, natural disasters and the water cycle.
- Understand how humans use the land for economic and trading purposes, including how the distribution of natural resources has shaped this.
- Develop an appreciation for how humans are impacted by and have evolved around the physical geography surrounding them and how humans have had an impact on the environment, both positive and negative.
- Develop a sense of location and place around the UK and some areas of the wider world using the eight-points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and keys on maps, globes, atlases, aerial photographs and digital mapping.
- Identify and understand how various elements of our globe create positioning, including latitude, longitude, the hemispheres, the tropics and how time zones work, including night and day.
- Present and answer their own geographical enquiries using planned and specifically chosen methodologies, collected data and digital technologies.
- Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Geography.
The impact of our Geography curriculum will be measured at each stage of a child’s primary education: both through formative and summative assessment. During lessons, teachers will use retrieval practise techniques to help develop children’s schemata. After lessons, teachers will assess children against the key learning outcomes and decide whether children have achieved the outcome or not. This can be seen through discussions, questioning, photos, activities and work produced. At the end of a unit, children will have a quiz to see how much they have learnt. This knowledge will be recorded by the teacher and will inform starting places for next topics. At the end of half terms we will summatively record children’s attainment on Sonar. Our Geography Subject Leader will monitor this whole school data to help check the children are making expected progress.
Quotes from our children
“I like learning about where different countries are and what they look like.”
“I liked learning about the Arctic and all the animals.”
Documents
Ainderby Steeple Geography Whole School Progression
Geography and History LTP Year A
Knowledge Organisers
Autumn term 2022: Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, Class 4
Spring term 2023: Class 1, Class 2, Class 3, Class 4,
