Geography

Geography Curriculum Statement:

Intent:

At Jesse Gray, we believe that our Geography curriculum provides children with important opportunities to ask and answer questions about natural and human environments - encouraging children to develop a greater understanding of our world and their place in it. It promotes independent thinking through a range of investigations and big questions which allow children to deepen their geographical skills as they progress through the school.

Our enquiry based approach does not attempt to teach topics in their entirety as this often leads to an over-emphasis on content and ‘knowing’, rather than on enabling pupils to achieve higher order outcomes by interrogating information and applying skills from one context to another. We believe this curriculum allows children to ask questions about topics, places, themes and issues – questions that are relevant if you are going to live to see the next century. At Key Stage 1 many of these questions will understandably be more tightly defined or closed, such as: ‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’ and ‘When’ questions. By Key Stage 2, a more open-ended approach will be apparent - with an emphasis on ‘Why’ and ‘How’ questions.

(Hathersage 2019)

Differentiation is used to ensure our Geography curriculum is challenging to pupils of all abilities and to ensure that all children can access, enjoy, reach and even exceed their individual potential. The use of BLOOMS taxonomy for differentiation also allows children to choose their preferred learning style; promoting creativity and a deeper level of understanding. The curriculum is regularly monitored and reviewed.

Geography is by nature an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives; to promote children’s interest and understanding about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

Implementation
^{Through the framework of the 2014 National Curriculum, Geography taught at Jesse Gray School, aims to ensure that all children:}

• develop age-appropriate, accurate knowledge of the location, physical and human characteristics of a wide range of globally significant places including terrestrial and marine locations
• to use this knowledge to provide a geographical context to study and understand the actions of important geographical processes
• understand that these processes give rise to the key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about variation and change to the geographical landscape
• to be able to use geographical vocabulary which is appropriate and accurate and which develops and evolves from EYFS to KS1 and through to KS2
• collect, analyse and present a range of data, gathered through experiences of fieldwork, to deepen understanding of geographical processes
• use and interpret a wide range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes and aerial photographs
• develop skills in Geographical Information Systems (GIS) (software and interactive resources) which allow for digital mapping, analysis of data and data models
• are able to communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length
• to fulfil the requirements of the 2014 National Curriculum for Geography
• to promote children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helping them to have a greater understanding of their place in the world, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment

Impact

Through the geography taught at Jesse Gray, we strive to create an inspiring and engaging ethos for learning, by providing investigative and enquiry-based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on creative and cross-curricular learning. This allows children to see the links between skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas - promoting children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Children will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments of the world in which they live.