Geography
Geography Vision Statement
Geography Curriculum
At Grove Wood, we strive to provide our pupils with an exciting, engaging, creative and aspirational curriculum. We seek to inspire our children to engage and explore the world around them - both within and beyond our school gates.
‘You can travel the seas, poles and deserts and see nothing. To really understand the world, you need to get under the skin of the people and places. In other words, learn about geography. I can’t imagine a subject more relevant in schools.’
Michael Palin
Our Geography teaching aims to provide high quality learning experiences that inspire, encourage and nurture the children’s natural curiosity, to find out about the physical and human world around them. Our learners gain a growing knowledge and understanding of places, people and environments. They are inspired to be inquisitive and questioning, looking at global issues that affect us directly and indirectly and interpret what they find out.
Intent
Our Curriculum Intent is for pupils to know more, do more and learn more.
A guiding principle of our Geography curriculum, is that each study draws upon prior learning. High volume and deliberate practice is essential for pupils to remember and retrieve substantive knowledge and use their disciplinary knowledge to explain and articulate what they know. This means pupils make conscious connections and think hard, using what they know.
Our Geography curriculum is built around the principles of cumulative knowledge focusing on spaces, places, scale, human and physical processes with an emphasis on how content is connected and relational knowledge acquired. An example of this is the identification of continents, such as Europe, and its relationship to the location of the UK – physically how the land masses are formed and the social, political and economic effects of their proximity.
What do we teach?
EYFS
Immediate environment
Natural world
Weather and seasonal changes
Transport and travel
People, culture and communities
Year 1
Continents
Oceans
Countries of the UK
Capital cities of the UK
Seas around the UK
The Equator
Hot and cold places
North and South Poles
School study (mapping and field work)
Year 2
Human and Physical features – Local area study
Fieldwork and map skills
Compare a small part of the UK to a non-European location (London, Nairobi and the Amazon Rainforest)
Year 3
Fieldwork: Human and Physical features
UK Study
OS map and scale
Year 4
Rivers
Water cycle
Map skills – environmental regions
Latitude and longitude
Year 5
World countries – Biomes and environmental regions
4 and 6 figure map references
OS maps and fieldwork
Year 6
Physical processes: earthquakes, mountains and volcanoes
Settlements
Comparison study – UK, Europe and North or South America
Maps an orienteering
How do pupils learn?
Each unit includes has an overview for teachers which details the big idea that pupils will be studying, prior knowledge, skills to be taught and common misconceptions.
Dual coded knowledge organisers contain core information for children to easily access and use as a point of reference and as a means of retrieval practice. The sequence of learning makes clear essential and desirable knowledge, key questions and task suggestions for each lesson and suggested cumulative quizzing questions.
Retrieval practice is planned into the curriculum through spaced learning and interleaving and as part of considered task design by the class teachers. Teaching and learning resources are provided for class teachers so they can focus their time on subject knowledge and task design. Knowledge notes are an elaboration in the core knowledge found in knowledge organisers. Knowledge notes focus pupils’ working memory to the key question that will be asked at the end of the lesson. It reduces cognitive load and avoids the split-attention effect.
The units are supported by vocabulary modules which provide both resources for teaching and learning vital vocabulary and provide teachers with high frequency, multiple meaning words (tier 2) are taught and help make sense of subject specific words (tier 3) with the etymology and morphology needed for explicit instruction details relevant idioms and colloquialisms to make this learning explicit.
Grove Wood Geography curriculum equips pupils to become ‘more expert’ with each study and grow an ever broadening and coherent mental model of the subject. This guards against superficial, disconnected and fragmented geographical knowledge. We aim to provide a high challenge with low threat culture and put no ceiling on any child’s learning, instead providing the right scaffolding for each child for them to achieve.
Fieldwork
At Grove Wood, we take our Geography learning within the classroom outside where possible to connect with the children’s local environment through fieldwork. These experiences are carefully planned so that pupils’ attention is focused on Geographical content and to ensure that learning that takes place within the classroom is supported. Some examples of Geographical fieldwork and how they support our curriculum are:
EYFS and Y1 School study (mapping and field work)
Y2 Local area study – Human and Physical features
Using simple compass directions building from 4 to 6, 4 figured to 6 figured grid reference points.
OS maps and fieldwork in Y3-6
Orienteering in Y6
How do we know what children have learned?
Questioning
Pupil Book Study
Talking to teachers
Low stakes ‘Drop-in’ observations/ Learning walks
Quizzing and retrieval practise
Feedback and marking
Progress in book matches the curriculum intent
In Geography club this term the children have been researching what a country is most famous for and making a 3D models to represent them.
Flags are an important part of a nation’s identity, and learning about flags helps children identify and remember places around the world. In Geography club the children have been researching flags of countries, then making one and find at least 3 interesting facts about the country
Year 4 had a special virtual reality experience. We've travelled around the world linked to our Geography topic. We've been to France and up the Eiffel tower; zoomed to Australia and passed by the Sydney Opera House then flew to New York and climbed the Empire State building! We experienced some of the seven wonders on the world we have been studying in class - walked along the Great Wall of China, then saw Christ the Redeemer in Brazil and finally the Taj Mahal in India. We've talked about continents and capital cities, famous landmarks and quizzed about them. The winning team got to choose our final destination - under the sea.
