Intent

The Geography curriculum is designed to give pupils opportunities to help to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. We follow the National Curriculum as a guideline, however we pride ourselves on our creative learning environment and multi sensory lessons. We want our children to have a genuine interest in the world around them and be educated about places beyond our local area.

Intent

At St Laurence Primary School, we strive to deliver high quality Geography teaching to inspire pupil’s curiosity about the world and the diverse variety groups of inhabitants in it. 

Our teaching will:

• Equip pupils with knowledge about variety of places, people, resources and natural and human environments
• Learn about, and the difference between human and physical processes
• Develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine 
• Encourage the children to show their respect for their local, national and international environment.
• Enable children to gain confidence and enjoy practical experiences through local fieldwork studies and in our wider community in which has a wealth of both geographical and historical features. As their skills further develop our intent is that all our pupils gain knowledge, understanding and can explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time. 
• A widespread base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary
• Fluency in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills
• Excellent fieldwork skills as well as other geographical aptitudes and techniques
• The ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current issues in society and the environment
• A genuine interest in the subject and a real sense of curiosity about the world and the people who live here.

Implementation 

We use the Kapow scheme of work and our subject knowledge and skills grids to map out progressive learning throughout school. To ensure that children 'know more' and 'remember more', we have identified the 'core knowledge' for our pupils which we teach and reteach to ensure that learning is embedded in the long term memory. (see knowledge organisers and skills progression grids)

Our planning for the Geography curriculum is extensive, and planned progressively following the school’s sequence and progression grids. This is monitored and checked by the school’s Geography leader.

We will do this by: 

• Staff following the knowledge and skills progression document to create a curriculum overview for the year.
• Staff to ensure that the key knowledge and vocabulary receives the appropriate coverage within each Geography unit.
• Educational visits are planned where possible.
• Ensuring children visit the local environment to look at geographical features.
• The local area is fully utilised to achieve the desired outcomes, with extensive opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice. 
• The orienteering course in the school grounds will be utilised to teach map skills in a practical way. 
• Appropriate resources are provided to add depth and understanding for each unit.
• Learning is always adapted to make it as accessible as possible for SEND pupils.

Impact 

At St Laurence, our Geography Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to establish progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Pupil discussions about their learning.
• By analysing work in children’s books and matching this to the key knowledge that they need to remember at each stage of their learning, based on planning overviews.
• Learning revisited and reviewed regularly.
• An understanding in pupils of how each unit of work links to another.
• Assessed reflection of standards achieved against the planned outcomes.
• As teachers, we strive to ensure that children are equipped with Geographical knowledge and skills that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and for life as an adult in the wider world.