Geography

Intent

At Birchfields our intention is to inspire our children to develop a curiosity and fascination about the World and the people in it by providing a high quality, engaging Geography curriculum. We want the content of the lessons we teach to remain with the children long beyond their time at Birchfields. We want to promote children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

Our bespoke Birchfields curriculum is designed to build on previous learning and to ensure the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills; enabling the children to develop a love for Geography. We want our children to acquire knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but through purposeful fieldwork and exciting educational visits. Through our teaching, we intend to provoke thought, challenge and provide opportunities to apply knowledge and skills. We want our children to ask questions and we strive to enable Birchfields pupils to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of their local environment, the world and their place in it.

Implementation

In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in Geography, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school with teachers planning engaging lessons for their class, mirroring our progression of knowledge and skills document covering: locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical Geography, and geographical skills and fieldwork. All classrooms in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 display a diverse collection of maps relevant the curriculum and which are also constantly referred to within many lessons outside those that are specifically Geography.

The Geography curriculum is taught through our bespoke half termly projects. Some projects focus heavily on Geographical knowledge and skills and some less so. All National Curriculum objectives are covered during the academic school year. Each project is launched with a project Springboard and vocabulary mat which are used to excite and stir interest in the children. Often key Geographical vocabulary is included on these mats to ensure the children access and use them in the correct context. The EYFS is the start of the children’s journey as a geographer where they learn to understand their direct environment and their place in our school. In Key Stage 1 the children get a sense of place in their own locality. In Key Stage 2 the progression begins to extend children’s knowledge to include Europe and the Wider World developing a sense of global Geography. Where possible, geographic cross-curricular links are made within as many subjects as possible across the curriculum.