Geography
We believe our pupils learn best through regularly experiencing the world around them through the lens of Geographers. Our geography curriculum prepares children for life by developing practical skills such as map reading, aerial photography and digital mapping as well as carrying out a range of field work. We inspire children to love learning about our world both inside and outside the classroom, fostering a desire to continue learning beyond their school experience.
Intent
Through our approach to the teaching of Geography at Hareside Primary, we aim to develop proactive members of society. Children of the future who have an understanding of their responsibility to protect our planet and the world in which we live as well as a consideration that we leave our mark on the world in various ways such as consumption, development and conservation.
Here at Hareside we have worked hard to design our own curriculum that will engender the excitement, creativity and critical thinking about the world that will equip our young people to make their own way in it. Our children will gain knowledge of their local area and the wider world whilst developing their geographical skills. We will equip them with knowledge about places, people and their environment, developing an understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes that shape our landscape and surroundings. Our children will have respect for their local and wider environment and understand the threats and challenges faced to our planet.
We intend to show children how they contribute to building a better world and promote an understanding of the diversity of people and places that make up our planet. Through learning about local, national and international communities we believe our children will develop a strong respect for diversity and culture. We encourage our children to be curious about the world around them and to ask questions. We bring Geography to life and make the most of what we have right on our door step!
How geography is implemented
At Hareside Primary, our geography follows the National Curriculum and is taught in half termly blocks throughout the school year. Key knowledge and skills for each topic have been identified to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group across the school.
Our geography curriculum provides children with an array of enriching opportunities and a strong focus on fieldwork and outdoor learning. Our children experience a wide range of educational visits linked to their geography topic. These include our residential trip to Ford Castle, a visit to a working farm, and a number of local area visits. These opportunities develop the children’s awareness of their locality as well as providing the children with a sense of place. Learning beyond our school environment brings geography to life and develops the children’s knowledge, understanding, care and consideration for the environment.
To support children in making sense of the world we begin in the Early years by exploring their immediate environment before moving outward in Key stage one where children begin to explore our local area. In Key stage 2, children progress to exploring the world on a global scale building on previous geographical knowledge. At the core of our geography curriculum are four procedural concepts: Location and Place, Cause and Effect, Decision Making and Change. By learning geography through these concepts our children are able to relate information and ideas to each other and make sense of them. The concepts also develop higher order thinking such as being able to give explanations and think abstractly.
Within lessons children develop their geographical enquiry skills through exploring physical environments, human interactions and how the two areas intertwine with each other. Our children learn about real global issues such as deforestation, climate change and plastic pollution. These issues are taught at a personal level for the children, linking to their own environments to enable them to develop an understanding of the impact of the issues and to see how they themselves can make a difference. For example, in year 4 our children learn about plastic pollution and how human activity influences this. As part of their topic they look at how they can directly make an impact on plastic pollution within school and our local community, showing them that this global issue has an impact on them and the future.
The impact of our geography curriculum
The impact of our geography curriculum will show how much children enjoy their geography lessons and can talk passionately about the subject. Our children will become inquisitive learners who are able to demonstrate a variety of geographical skills and understanding using the acquired vocabulary within lessons and topics.
We use a range of strategies to assess what skills and knowledge the children have attained through each topic including the following:
- Marking and feedback from teachers and peers
- Relevant displays in classrooms
- Book looks
- Learning walks
- Pupil voice
- Planning audits
- End of Key Stage benchmarks
National Curriculum Programmes of Study
National Curriculum Geography Key Stages 1 to 2.
How can I support my child with geography at home?
You are already an accomplished geographer! Day to day life provides you with so many rich geographical experiences. As you navigate your way around the local area, as you make sense of the world news and respond to the weather forecast, these are all skills you can pass onto your child.
A few ideas:
- Talk about the local area when you are out and about. What can you see? Notice street names.
- Share road maps and satnav maps when going on a journey.
- Talk about holiday destinations in comparison with your home town.
- Talk about the weather and watch the forecast together.
- Collect post cards of places and create a scrap book.
- What are you eating? Where does it come from?
- Talk changes in the environment as the seasons change.
The list is endless! All in all you can help your children by encouraging them to ask and try and answer questions about the world in which we live.
Useful Websites for Geography
Click on the logos to be redirected to the websites
Easy Geography for Kids
This is a really comprehensive website where you can learn all about continents and oceans, climate change and biogeography. There are also regular news articles linked to our world.
Google Earth
This is an amazing resource where you can visit any destination in the world! (Make sure you’re using Chrome as your browser)
Ordnance survey map zone
This is an amazing resource where you can develop the geographical knowledge you have been learning in your geography topic in school
Cultural Jambalaya
This is a great resource for you to develop your global awareness and cross-cultural understanding. There are lots of photographs and videos of lots of cultures from around the world (The Seen by Me videos are best for KS2)
National Geographic Kids
This site is great for current geographical news and interactive tasks.
Education Quizzes
There a lots of quizzes for KS2 to test their geographical knowledge on this website.
Newsround
It’s always great to keep up to date on current affairs linked to all areas of the world but there are also some great articles on the Newsround website linked to climate change.
BBC Bitesize
There are lots of revision lessons and learning clips to support you with your learning from your lessons on this site.
Key Stage 1
3D Geography
This website has lots of clear information which you can search for linked to topics
like Volcanoes, River and Earthquakes.
Ducksters
There’s a wide range of information about countries of the world on this website as well as flags and mapping games.
Use your school log in to access
Digimap for schools
This resource is used within school exploring maps around of world and offers a wealth of geography education to the children from looking at change over time, identifying places on a map, mapping out a route from one place to another, measuring the size of a country/river/lake etc.
Oddizzi
There are lots of fantastic resources to engage with on oddizzi linked directly to your topic in school including quizzes.
