At Geography we strive to develop children’s enjoyment and interest in geography. We aim to ensure that a full curriculum is planned and taught throughout school while building on children’s prior knowledge and capabilities. At St. Luke’s we aim to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. Children are encouraged to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas. Our curriculum is purposeful and allows the children to develop their skills in a range of ways including investigating key questions, recording findings in a variety of ways, analysing results, making predictions and hypothesising. Our intent when teaching geography is to inspire children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and people within it, whilst promoting children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. We incorporate our outdoor space in our learning of Geography by using the eco garden to fulfil our wider learning experiences.
At St. Luke’s we ensure that staff have a good, up to date knowledge of the curriculum and the content taught at each year group. Teachers develop children’s thinking and understanding by asking differentiated questions to challenge all children’s abilities. Misconceptions are addressed and children are encouraged to develop their thinking and make links between knowledge taught in previous year groups. This ensures that skills are built one each year and sequenced appropriately to maximise learning for all children. Children are encouraged to use the correct terminology and have a good understanding of the skills that they will need to complete a task. Geography is included within the ‘Understanding the World’ area of the Development Matters Document and children within EYFS focus on the two aspects which are: ‘Understanding the World’ (People and Communities) and ‘Understanding the World’ (The World). Each term, opportunities are provided for children to develop their skills in order for children to meet age-related and end of year expectations (Early Learning Goals). Work completed in Geography shows clear differentiation and progress across year groups and is presented in class displays, whole school displays and in workbooks. Children are given verbal and written feedback on the work that they have produced and understand the steps they must take to make progress in each lesson.
At St. Luke’s teachers regularly assess children and upload data onto our assessment programme ‘Depth of Learning’. Clear progress is demonstrated across the year groups using this system. We aim to ensure that children progress through year groups feeling ready to develop and build on their knowledge and skills. All children are given the opportunity to succeed and make good progress in Geography. Evidence of good quality of work including an acquisition of identified key geographical knowledge and skills can be found in the children’s topic books. Written or verbal feedback is given to help guide children’s progress. As children progress throughout St Luke’s, they develop a deep knowledge, understanding an appreciation of their local area and its place within the wider geographical context.
We have used a combination of curriculum approaches to develop our Geography curriculum including The National Curriculum, Chris Quigley Essentials Curriculum and the e-learning resource Oddizzi. Oddizzi is a useful teaching tool which provides children with a range of learning approaches to develop their geographical understanding. There are videos, images, guided reading texts and quizzes which show the children the world through the eyes of people who are passionate about the places they are sharing.
Feel free to explore our Oddizzi resource through the link below: