Geography

At St Therese, we want our Geography curriculum to inspire in pupils a curiosity and interest towards the world and its people. To be curious about how the world has changed and the impact of these changes. To look beyond their own location and develop an understanding of the vastness of the world.

We believe that the teaching of Geography gives pupils an understanding of the world around them, its environments, places near and far, and the processes that create and affect them. It is a subject in its own right and the children learn best when it is approached in this way. 

We will focus our Geography teaching on these main strands – these are the building blocks for our teaching: 

  • locational knowledge
  • place knowledge
  • physical and human processes
  • geographical skills and fieldwork.

Our aim is to:

  • Teach the National Curriculum minimum expectations for Key Stages 1 and 2
  • Help pupils be better at Geography by defining our  ‘core’ content – this is our substantive knowledge – which we want pupils to know and remember from particular topics so we can focus clearly on what we want the children to remember and know – this is the knowledge of Geography  –place, locational, human, physical and environmental knowledge.–
  • Plan opportunities for pupils to learn  disciplinary knowledge over time so pupils will study specific examples of how Geographers work to gather evidence, how they consider evidence to make reasons and decisions. How they think and interact with the world around them through carrying out fieldwork, and by collecting and interpreting data 
  • Plan for opportunities so that pupils grow in knowledge in map reading progressively through their time at school
  • Give breadth to pupils’ learning by creating opportunities for pupils to build their knowledge of a wide range of geographical places, processes and skills.
  • Support pupils to transfer knowledge learned in one topic so they can use it in other topics.
  • Enable all pupils to access the curriculum and ensure that this is not reduced or minimised for pupils with SEND
  • Improve children’s knowledge and use of geographical vocabulary
  • Teach the National Curriculum minimum expectations for Key Stages 1 and 2
  • Help children make progress by ensuring that learning builds from what is already known to help them learn more and remember more and build in systems to help them do this
  • Help children to  learn purposefully in EYFS to give them  security in their learning so it can be built upon as they enter KS1.
  • Ensure children learn from a balanced  curriculum with content focused on  physical and human geography processes.
  • Provide opportunities for pupils to learn important processes such as fieldwork. These are planned to give children opportunities to learn how a geographer works

We want the Geography curriculum at our school to enable children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills.

We want the prior content that pupils learn to be remembered to enable them to understand and know more difficult concepts and to use their previous learning to help them with more complex concepts and thinking.

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, equipping them well for further education and beyond.

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