Geography

Geography

A high-quality geography education should inspire pupils’ curiosity and fascination with the world and its people. Through their geography education, pupils develop in-depth knowledge and skills relating to both human and physical geography in the local area and the wider world. Through high-quality teaching and carefully planned progression of geographical skills and vocabulary, pupils are supported to make strong progress and reach or exceed their potential. At Ashbury Meadow, we use the Rising Stars curriculum to structure and support the planning of our geography spiral curriculum. This ensures clear progression between year groups and provides teachers with effective planning support.

In class, teachers plan a range of practical and enquiry-based learning opportunities, including meaningful cross-curricular links that respond to the needs of the cohort. The global team also plans and organises whole-school focus days for events such as global cultural celebrations.

Through our geography spiral curriculum for Years 1–6, pupils build upon the knowledge and skills developed in EYFS, within the specific area of learning Understanding the World.

The spiral curriculum is structured around key enquiry questions, with links to locality, to develop pupils’ disciplinary knowledge. Learning is organised through key concepts to enable pupils to:

• Develop contextual knowledge of globally significant places, both terrestrial and marine, including their defining physical and human characteristics

• Understand the physical and human processes that shape geographical features, and how these processes lead to spatial variation and change over time

• Develop essential geographical skills, including:

  • Collecting, analysing and communicating data through fieldwork

  • Interpreting a range of geographical sources

  • Communicating geographical information in a variety of ways, including maps and extended writing

Each year group takes part in a local study week to enhance pupils’ knowledge of their local area and to develop age-appropriate geographical skills. Fieldwork investigations are planned to provide pupils with purposeful, first-hand learning experiences, supporting their understanding of geographical concepts.

The following broad dimensions of progress describe how pupils develop as geographers throughout the school:

• Moving from the familiar to the less familiar

• Acquiring increasing fluency in world knowledge

• Working with increasingly complex ideas and concepts

• Using and interpreting more complex data

• Investigating relationships between people and the environment

• Applying geographical thinking to new contexts

• Becoming more precise in language, ideas and skills

• Recognising that geographical issues may have multiple perspectives

• Making connections between information and ideas to build new knowledge

• Drawing on a growing breadth of content and contexts

• Developing understanding of perspective and recognising a range of values and viewpoints

• Developing academic vocabulary through the introduction of key words in each geographical unit

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