Geography

Vision:

To inspire every child to think like a geographer: asking perceptive questions about the natural and human world, exploring diverse places and ecosystems, and developing the fieldwork skills and spatial awareness to understand our changing planet and their role within it.

 

Curriculum Drivers: 

Explore Possibilities: Investigate global landscapes, environments, and cultures—from local high streets and the UK coast to the Amazon rainforest, Northern Italy, and Jamaica—broadening their horizon of the world beyond their immediate experience.   

 

Create with Independence: Conduct independent enquiries, read and construct maps, collect data through field surveys, and formulate informed arguments on pressing contemporary challenges such as sustainability and climate change.

   

Build Resilience: Engage in fieldwork across all key stages, testing geographical hypotheses, interpreting complex geographical data, and evaluating responses to physical hazards like earthquakes and river flooding. 

 

Intent:

• Mastery of Core Skills: Develop systematic map skills (using globes, atlases, compass points, and digital mapping) alongside hands-on fieldwork methods (data collection, local surveys, tallying, and environmental analysis) across Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.   

• Spatial & Cultural Literacy: Build a coherent understanding of the UK, Europe, the Americas, and global environments (polar regions, tropical rainforests, oceans, and rivers), analysing the human and physical features that shape each community and ecosystem.   

• Geographical Autonomy & Stewardship: Empower pupils to ask geographical enquiry questions, critically evaluate human impacts (such as waste, land use, and deforestation), and understand their responsibilities as global citizens.

 

Implementation:

• Enquiry & Fieldwork-Centered Learning: Embed structured fieldwork investigations into every year group—ranging from local weather and school grounds surveys in KS1 to high street surveys, local river visits, coastal studies, and structural site risk assessments in KS2.   

• Progressive Locational & Physical Knowledge: Sequence learning logically from immediate environments (school, local area, UK) in Key Stage 1 to regional, national, and global physical/human processes (rivers, volcanoes, earthquakes, biomes, time zones, and sustainability) in Key Stage 2.   

• Informed Dialogue & Digital Mapping: Direct instruction of technical geographical vocabulary (e.g., latitude, longitude, erosion, settlement patterns, carbon footprints, biomes) alongside modern digital mapping tools to analyse land use and global patterns.  

 

Intended Impact:

By the time children leave primary school, they see themselves as capable geographers equipped with the mapping, analytical, and fieldwork skills required to explore the world. They leave with a deep respect for diverse human cultures, an understanding of physical planet processes, and a commitment to environmental sustainability.