Intent

At Meadowside Primary School, we aim to provide a high-quality geography education with opportunities for pupils to engage in geographical concepts. Geography is an essential part of the curriculum, it provides a means of exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. Geography explores the relationship between the Earth and its people through the study of place, space and environment. Geography is the subject in which pupils learn the skills of understanding a locality and how and where people fit into its overall structure. Developing geographical skills is essential as pupils live in a world that is wide open to them.

Implementation

In Early Years Foundation Stage, pupils are taught Geography through their EYFS Curriculum of Understanding the World. Pupils are given the opportunity to practice learning through teacher led and child led activities as well as continuous provision. This enables pupils to return to their explorations and consolidate learning over the course of a day or a more extended period. The pupils will explore subject specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and use first hand observations within their immediate location to enhance their locational awareness.

In Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2, we follow the National Curriculum and have adopted the Chris Quigley approach and milestones. This provides a robust, systematic approach to learning, thus ensuring a purposefully sequenced and vocabulary rich curriculum. KS1 and KS2 pupils extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom, Europe and other continents throughout the world. Our pupils will develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enrich their locational and place knowledge.

All year groups from nursery to year 6 will have the opportunity to take part fieldwork, allowing them to explore outside of the classroom in a variety of teacher led and pupil led enquires. Pupils will have the opportunity to go through the process of fieldwork by; asking questions, collaborating with peers, collect and present information/data, reflect, evaluate and communicate their findings.

Impact

At Meadowside we aim for our pupils to have:

• An excellent knowledge of where places are and what they are like.
• An excellent understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.
• An extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.
• Fluency in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques.
• The ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.
• Significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity as shown in interpretations and representations of the subject matter.
• Highly developed and frequently utilised fieldwork and other geographical skills and techniques.
• A passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there.
• The ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current and contemporary issues in society and the environment.