Geography

Intent

At Great Sankey Primary School we believe that Geography helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world.  Children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, places and their environments, as well as their place in it.  The geography curriculum at GSP enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable to other curriculum areas; which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.  

Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills.  We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives; to promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

Useful Websites

Implementation

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in geography, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.  Geography is taught as part of a termly theme, focusing on knowledge and skills as stated in the National Curriculum.  

The geography curriculum at GSP is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills to be taught in each Key Stage.  Teachers plan lessons for their phases using our Milestones documents.  The Milestones document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills, knowledge and vocabulary taught is progressive throughout each phase. 

The Milestone Documents allow teachers to plan lessons that build upon previous knowledge and regular retrieval activities are planned in to assess how well they are retaining previously taught knowledge.  Although geography can be taught alone, it also offers meaningful contexts for high- quality cross - curricular work, which are specifically planned for, across Maths, Science and English.  Consideration is given to how a deeper understanding will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion. 

At GSP, we ensure that our geography curriculum equips all our children in gaining ‘real-life’ experiences that are transferable in the wider curriculum. Educational visits are another opportunity for the teachers to plan for additional geography learning outside the classroom.  At GSP, the children have had many opportunities to experience geography on educational visits.  Across each phase, the children have explored the local area including creating different habitats within the school grounds, visiting local canals, rivers and museums, and using map reading skills and orienteering during residential trips.  Our whole school trips to Delamere Forest, Formby Beach and Croxteth Park also provided an opportunity to further geography learning.

Impact

The quality of our geography curriculum is high, it is well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression.  We focus on progression of knowledge and skills: vocabulary progression also forms part of the units of work.  Children will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments.  We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

Through Pupil voice, children will be able to:

• articulate their knowledge and understanding as a geographer.
• explain how geography ‘happens’ in their local area.
• talk about the world around them and how it has been shaped.
• describe what geography is and how they have applied this learning in a given context
• say if the know more, remember more and understand more.
• Through planned B.A.D assessment tasks, subject leader will be able to see how well a child has understood their learning and whether they can apply knowledge and skills at a deeper level.
• Monitor planned retrieval tasks to assess how well the children have retained information at a distance from previous learning.
• Collating images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
• Moderation meetings where pupil’s books are scrutinised and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between colleagues to share good practice and look at the standards achieved across the school in Geography.
• Through in-depth monitoring of the Geography, the subject leader will report the standards in geography to SLT and Governors

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