Teaching Geography at Haselworth Primary School

Intent

At Haselworth, geography education should be fully inclusive to every child.  Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for Geography; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to develop a love for geography.  Furthermore, we aim to 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.

Our Geography curriculum aims to inspire and excite our children and develop their appreciation and understanding of the world in which they live and grow. The units of work the children experience will address and allow for the discussion of big issues such as climate change, water security and pollution. The Geography curriculum also seeks to provide opportunities for our children to develop their cultural capital by studying, comparing and contrasting our climate, topography and culture with that of others locally, nationally and globally

How do we teach Geography?

It is essential that the teaching of Geography is based on the needs of individuals in terms of their development. Geography can be accessible for all pupils with support and a clear understanding of how each pupil is developing. At every possible opportunity we aim that our pupils learn through enquiry and exploration of the world around them. Lessons should encourage students to develop alongside key geographical learning, a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.  

At Haselworth, we aim to provide as many hands-on opportunities for Geography learning as we can, through trips, use of geographically focused upon educational visits, visitors to school and the hiring of topic related artefact boxes.

The aims of teaching Geography in our school are:

• To inspire pupils’ curiosity to discover more about the world around them at a local, national and international level.
• To enable children to know about the location of the world’s continents, countries, cities, seas and oceans.
• To support children in their development of skill in interpreting a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
• To help children understand how the human and physical features of a place shape its usage, and that this can change over time for a variety of different, and often complex, reasons.
• To provide cross-curricular opportunities to study mathematics, English, P4C and computing through geography lessons.

Implementation

Due to having mixed age classes, the school has a two-year rolling programme (Cycle A and Cycle B) so that all national curriculum requirements are fully covered without children repeating the same topics. The curriculum map outlines the termly topic and in which cycle it is taught. These topics form the basis of the learning journey.  

The learning journey details previous assessment outcomes, National Curriculum links, the substantive and disciplinary skills/knowledge that are taught/practised by children, the learning objective, the learning tasks, key vocabulary, resources, links with other subjects and assessment information. The learning journeys are adapted and refined according to a teacher's assessment so that the planning is responsive to the needs of all learners. We ensure that children of all abilities have the opportunity to develop their skills, knowledge and understanding in this way, so that children are increasingly challenged as they move through school.

At Key Stage 1, pupils should be taught:

Locational knowledge

• name and locate the world’s seven continents and five oceans
• name, locate and identify characteristics of the four countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom and its surrounding seas

Place knowledge

• understand geographical similarities and differences through studying the human and physical geography of a small area of the United Kingdom, and of a small area in a contrasting non-European country

Human and physical geography

• identify seasonal and daily weather patterns in the United Kingdom and the location of hot and cold areas of the world in relation to the Equator and the North and South Poles
• use basic geographical vocabulary to refer to:
• key physical features, including: beach, cliff, coast, forest, hill, mountain, sea, ocean, river, soil, valley, vegetation, season and weather
• key human features, including: city, town, village, factory, farm, house, office, port, harbour and shop

Geographical skills and fieldwork

• use world maps, atlases and globes to identify the United Kingdom and its countries, as well as the countries, continents and oceans studied at this key stage
• use simple compass directions (North, South, East and West) and locational and directional language [for example, near and far; left and right], to describe the location of features and routes on a map
• use aerial photographs and plan perspectives to recognise landmarks and basic human and physical features; devise a simple map; and use and construct basic symbols in a key
• use simple fieldwork and observational skills to study the geography of their school and its grounds and the key human and physical features of its surrounding environment.

At Key Stage 2, the pupils should extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom and Europe, North and South America. This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features. They should develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge.

Pupils should be taught to:

Locational knowledge

• locate the world’s countries, using maps to focus on Europe (including the location of Russia) and North and South America, concentrating on their environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, countries, and major cities
• name and locate counties and cities of the United Kingdom, geographical regions and their identifying human and physical characteristics, key topographical features (including hills, mountains, coasts and rivers), and land-use patterns; and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time
• identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones (including day and night)

Place knowledge

• understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region of the United Kingdom, a region in a European country, and a region within North or South America

Human and physical geography

• describe and understand key aspects of: physical geography, including: climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle
• human geography, including: types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water

Geographical skills and fieldwork

• use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries and describe features studied
• use the eight points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and key (including the use of Ordnance Survey maps) to build their knowledge of the United Kingdom and the wider world
• use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area using a range of methods, including sketch maps, plans and graphs, and digital technologies.

The Foundation Stage

Geography in the Foundation Stage is about people, places and the world around us. In EYFS the children focus on their immediate locality and learn about places around their homes, their school and its grounds. They learn about familiar features such as houses, farms and shops building on their everyday experiences. As the reception children follow the Statutory Framework for EYFS, we relate Geography to the development of the children’s Early Learning Goal:  Understanding the World.

Inclusion including Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers

At Haselworth Primary School we teach Geography to all children, whatever their ability. Through high quality initial teaching, we provide learning opportunities that enable all pupils to make progress. We do this through appropriate task design which meets each child’s individual needs. Teachers will also take into account the targets set for individual children in their Individual Education Plans and Individual Behaviour Plans as appropriate. We recognise that learners have differing needs and provide suitable learning opportunities for all by matching the challenge of the activities to the ability of the child. We achieve this through a range of strategies:

• setting common learning activities that are open-ended and can have a variety of results;
• setting learning of increasing difficulty where not all children complete all tasks;
• setting specific learning according to individual needs and targets
• grouping children by ability and setting different tasks for each group;
• mixed ability grouping which facilitates peer support and discussion
• providing a range of challenges through the provision of different resources and scaffolds;
• using additional adults to support the work of individual children or small groups.

Equality

All teaching and learning of Geography will ensure that every child has the right to be included and supported as far as possible in the knowledge that there is equality in terms of opportunity, social background, race, gender and disability.

Assessment and Recording

Teachers assess children’s work in Geography by making assessments as they observe them working during lessons and through marking/feedback. They record the progress that children make by assessing the children’s work against the learning objectives. Teachers annotate the planning and amend/refine as required to meet the needs of learners. 

Throughout the learning journey, teachers make a judgement against the National Curriculum statements as well as the substantive and disciplinary knowledge/skills identified by the school. Assessments are recorded on the learning journeys. Teachers then use the data to plan the future work of each child and to make an annual assessment of progress for each child, as part of the annual report to parents. Each teacher passes this information on to the next teacher at the end of each year as part of the school's transition processes. 

Health and Safety

Educational visits will be risk assessed as set out in the policy and sent through to the EVOLVE system.

Impact

The monitoring of the standards of children’s work and of the quality of teaching in Geography is the responsibility of the Language and Culture Curriculum Team. The team supports colleagues in the teaching of Geography, being informed about current developments in the subject and providing a strategic lead and direction for the subject in the school.

The following information outlines how the Curriculum Teams monitor, evaluate and review their subjects.

• Curriculum Teams use self-evaluation and write clear action plans and ensure that they are understood by all those involved in putting the plans into practice, including staff who are new to the school. These are reviewed termly and contribute to the monitoring, review and evaluation of the school development plan.
• Curriculum Teams follow a cycle of monitoring throughout the school for the academic year, ensuring that they can make judgements about the standards within their subjects. This includes learning walks, planning, books looks and pupil conferencing.
• Curriculum Teams report their impact to Governors. 
• Curriculum Teams ensure that teachers are clear about the teaching objectives in lessons, understand the sequence of teaching and learning in the subject, and communicate such information to pupils.
• Curriculum Teams ensure curriculum coverage, continuity and progression of substantive/disciplinary knowledge and skills in their subject for all pupils, regardless of their initial starting points. This includes having high expectations of all learners with SEND, EAL and those identified as being disadvantaged. 
• Curriculum Teams establish a clear, shared understanding of the importance and role of the subject in contributing to pupils’ spiritual, moral, social, cultural, mental and physical development, and in preparing pupils for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of adult life.
• Curriculum Teams use data effectively to identify pupils who are underachieving in the subject and, where necessary, create and implement effective plans of action to support those pupils