Navigation
Home Page

Geography

Geography Curriculum leader: Miss Caitlin Norman.

If you have any questions regarding the curriculum we teach, please contact the school office directly and the office staff will pass your enquiry on to the relevant Curriculum Leader.

Intent.

We aim to ensure that all pupils will be engaged, motivated and encouraged to become confident geographers.

 

Expectations for all pupils are high and we aim for pupils to master at least age-related expectations.

 

Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme of work aims to inspire pupils 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 necessary 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 and 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.

 

Our scheme encourages: • A strong focus on 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.

 

Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme of work enables pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets in the National curriculum. The aims also align with those in the National curriculum.

Implementation.

Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme has a clear progression of skills and knowledge within these four strands across each year group. The progression of skills and knowledge shows the skills taught within each year group and how these develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. The Kapow Primary scheme 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 our belief that this will consolidate children’s understanding of key concepts, such as scale and place, in Geography. Cross-curricular links are included throughout each unit, allowing children to make connections and apply their Geography skills to other areas of learning.

 

Our enquiry questions form the basis for our units, meaning that pupils gain a solid understanding of geographical knowledge and skills by applying them to answer enquiry questions. We have designed these questions to be open-ended with no preconceived answers and therefore they are genuinely purposeful and engage pupils in generating a real change. In attempting to answer them, children learn how to collect, interpret, present data using geographical methodologies and make informed decisions by applying their geographical knowledge.

 

Each unit contains elements of geographical skills and fieldwork to ensure that fieldwork skills are practised as often as possible. Kapow Primary units follow an enquiry cycle that maps out the fieldwork process of question, observe, measure, record, and present, to reflect the elements mentioned in the National curriculum. This ensures children will learn how to decide on an area of enquiry, plan to measure data using a range of methods, capture the data and present it to a range of appropriate stakeholders in various formats.

 

Fieldwork includes smaller opportunities on the school grounds to larger-scale visits to investigate physical and human features. Developing fieldwork skills within the school environment and revisiting them in multiple units enables pupils to consolidate their understanding of various methods. It also gives children the confidence to evaluate methodologies without always having to leave the school grounds and do so within the confines of a familiar place. This makes fieldwork regular and accessible while giving children a thorough understanding of their locality, providing a solid foundation when comparing it with other places.

 

Lessons incorporate various teaching strategies from independent tasks to paired and group work, including practical hands-on, computer-based and collaborative tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles.

Although we are using a scheme, we implement the scheme according to the needs of the class. Teachers will adapt the planning in order to suit the needs of the class. This maybe through the resources used or how the information is presented.

 

Impact.

The impact of Kapow Primary’s scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. Each lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives. Furthermore, each unit has a skill catcher and knowledge assessment quiz which can be used at the end of the unit to provide a summative assessment. This assessment will then feed into the school’s online assessment system on Sonar where children will be assessed against 3 criteria; emerging, meeting or exceeding expectations. Teachers will judge which description best fits the pupil’s performance. Assessments are tracked so that progress and attainment can be reviewed and acted upon throughout the year. 

 

The expected impact of following the Kapow Primary Geography scheme of work is that children will:

  • 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.

Workbook scrutiny is conducted by the subject leader. This is sometimes accompanied by the head teacher.

 

Each term, the subject leader provides a report that analyses data for progress and attainment. From this, threads of enquiry are followed up by the subject leader.

Children start by studying the local area and begin to use geographical skills such as following directions, observing and asking questions, describing and recording what they have seen, and using and making maps. They move on to compare their local area with a different one in Britain and then the rest of the world. Geographical knowledge develops an understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and the use of landscapes and environments in different parts of the world.

 

 


Top