Geography

Geography at Westlands

Intent

At Westlands Primary it is our intention that Geography will inspire pupils with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them throughout their lives. We aim to offer opportunities for children to explore the world in order to develop an understanding of the human and physical world in which they live in and their place within it. We aim to promote the 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. It is our intention that Geography will 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.  We encourage the children to ask questions about the world and provide opportunities for them to develop geographical skills and knowledge to be able to answer them.

It is our intention that the Geography curriculum will be both stimulating and motivating in order to capture the pupil’s curiosity and fuel their motivation to learn. The pupils should be provided with exciting learning opportunities so as they enjoy acquiring and developing their skills and knowledge and perceive the world as an interesting place. With a solid foundation upon which they can continue to build their knowledge, we hope that the children will continue to have a curiosity of the world throughout their life. 

Through our Geography curriculum we aim to develop skills and knowledge that the children can use throughout their life including:                                                                

• Developing an age-appropriate, accurate knowledge of the location of a wide range of globally significant places and develop their skills in describing the physical and human characteristics of these places. 
• Using their locational knowledge to provide a geographical context in which to study and understand important geographical processes.                                                                         
• Developing an understanding that these key processes play a vital role in the development of key physical and human geographical features of the world. They should be able to discuss the interdependence of physical and human geography and how they bring about variation and change to the geographical landscape of an area.
• Developing their ability to use key geographical vocabulary which is appropriate and accurate and which evolves from EYFS to Key stage 1 and through to key stage 2.
• They should develop the skills to use and interpret a wide range of sources of geographical information including maps, diagrams, globes and aerial photographs.                                                                                                      
• Developing the skills to collect, analyse and present a range of data, gathered through experiences of fieldwork, to deepen their understanding of key geographical processes.                                                                      
• Developing the skills to be able to communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills at writing. 

Implementation

At Westlands we follow the 2014 National Curriculum and adapt and it to suit the needs of the learners. We teach our Geography through a Creative Curriculum approach and make links to other subjects whenever it is useful to do so.  For further details of this please refer to individual year group’s long term plans and information sent out by class teachers.  

Impact             

Our Geography Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes with our monitoring processes;
• Pupil discussions about their learning;
• Assessment Grids linked to key objectives

Key Documents

Geography Long Term Plan