Intent

At St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Geography is delivered to a very high standard.  Our Geography curriculum is designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.  The students use their prior knowledge to solve problems and develop the Geographical skills.

The geography curriculum enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferrable to other curriculum areas. We believe that Geography is an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills.

At St Mary’s our intent, when teaching geography, is to promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. Opportunities will exist for children of all ages to experience learning beyond the classroom. This will allow them to enrich their knowledge by visiting places of geographical significance in our local area. Children will understand how Catholic virtues and British Values relate to Geography.

Implementation

Geography at St Mary’s Catholic Primary School is taught in half term blocks throughout the year, so that children can achieve and develop their learning. Teachers have identified the key knowledge and skills of each blocked topic and theses are mapped across the school, ensuring that knowledge builds progressively and that children develop skills systematically.

Class teachers provide students with knowledge organisers which outline all the important details of the topic of study and key vocabulary required for success in Geography that term.  In addition we use existing knowledge is checked at the beginning of each topic, as part of the KWL strategy (What I know, What I would like to Know and What I have Learned). This ensures that teaching is informed by the children’s starting points and that it takes account of pupil voice, incorporating children’s interests. Tasks are selected and designed to provide appropriate challenge to all learners, in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion. At the end of each topic, key knowledge is reviewed by the children and rigorously checked by the teacher and consolidated as necessary.

The local area is fully utilised to achieve the desired outcomes, with extensive opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice.

Cross-curricular outcomes in geography are specifically planned. When delivering our geography curriculum we make links, when appropriate, to work in other subjects such as History, English, R.E. and Science.

Throughout the year, we also provide opportunities for our pupils to increase their cultural capital by arranging educational visits to places within and beyond the locality, which are used to develop children’s understanding of the world in which they live and bring geography to life.

Impact

Our Geography is of high quality and planned to demonstrate progression.  We measure our curriculum through the following:

  • Pupil discussion about their learning. 
  • Pupil retention and retrieval of the knowledge and skills that are pertinent to geography with a real life context.
  • Pupil understanding of how geography ‘happens’ in their local area.
  • Pupils build on their understanding about the world around them and how it has been shaped.
  • They begin to understand the wider world and their role within it and how this impacts on climate change and other environmental issues.
  • They are inspired by what they have learnt and continue to develop their love of Geography.
  • They work collaboratively and independently to solve problems and explain the processes that they have taken and observed within a real life context.

At St Mary’s, we strive to ensure that our pupils, ‘do more, know more and remember more.’  Students’ knowledge and understanding are evaluated after each lesson based on the WALT and Success Criteria. Class teachers adjust short-term plans and activities accordingly to meet the needs of our pupils.