Intent
At J H Godwin Primary School, we endeavour to provide all children to become curious and explorative thinkers with a diverse knowledge of the world; in other words, to think like a geographer. We want pupils to develop the confidence to question and observe places, measure and record data in various ways and analyse and present their findings. Through our scheme of work, we aim to build an awareness of how Geography shapes our lives at multiple scales over time. We hope to encourage pupils to become resourceful, active citizens who will have the skills to contribute to and improve the world around them.
At J H Godwin, we follow Kapow’s Scheme as a curriculum start point for our lessons, and adapt this to consider the children’s needs, abilities and interests. We also tailor this scheme of work to build in links to our local area.
It is our intent to provide pupils with a curriculum that encourages the following:
- A strong focus o developing both geographical skills and knowledge
- Critical thinking, with the ability to ask perceptive questions and explain and analyse evidence
- The development of fieldwork skills across each year group
- A deep interest and knowledge of pupils’ locality and how it differs from other areas of the world
- A growing understanding of geographical terms and vocabulary.
Implementation
The Geography curriculum has a clear progression of skills and knowledge within these four strands across each year group:
- Locational knowledge
- Place knowledge
- Human and physical geography
- Geographical skills and fieldwork
The scheme used is a spiral curriculum, with essential knowledge and skills revisited with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Locational knowledge, in particular, will be reviewed in each unit to coincide with out belief that this will consolidate children’s understanding of key concepts such as scale and place. Cross-curricular links are included throughout each unit, allowing children to make connections and apply their Geography skills to other areas of learning.
Enquiry questions form the basis of each unit, meaning that pupil gain a solid understanding of geographical knowledge and skills by applying them to answer enquiry questions. These questions are designed to be open-ended with no preconceived answers and therefore are genuinely purposeful and engage pupils in generating a real change. In answering them, children learn how to collect, interpret and present data using geographical methodologies and make informed decisions.
Each unit contains elements of geographical skills and fieldwork to ensure that fieldwork skills are practiced as often as possible. Fieldwork includes smaller opportunities on school grounds, to larger-scale visits to investigate physical and human features. This allows fieldwork to be regular and accessible, while giving children a thorough understanding of their locality, providing a solid foundation when comparing it with other places.
Impact
Over the course of the scheme, children will learn to:
- Compare and contrast human and physical features to describe and understand similarities and differences between various places in the UK, Europe and the Americas.
- Name, locate and understand where and why the physical elements of our world are located and how they interact, including processes over time relating to climate, biomes, natural disasters and the water cycle.
- Understand how humans use the land for economic and trading purposes, including how the distribution of natural resources has shaped this.
- Develop an appreciation for how humans are impacted by and have evolved around the physical geography surrounding them and how humans have had an impact on the environment, both positive and negative.
- Develop a sense of location and place around the UK and some areas of the wider world using the eight-points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and keys on maps, globes, atlases, aerial photographs and digital mapping.
- Identify and understand how various elements of our globe create positioning, including latitude, longitude, the hemispheres, the tropics and how time zones work, including night and day.
- Present and answer their own geographical enquiries using planned and specifically chosen methodologies, collected data and digital technologies.
- Meet the end of key stage expectations outlined in the National curriculum for Geography