Purpose of Study

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.

Intent:

“The study of geography is about more than just memorizing places on a map. It's about understanding the complexity of our world, appreciating the diversity of cultures that exists across continents. And in the end, it's about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together.”   Barack Obama

The above quote underpins the value and importance of the teaching of Geography within ACET, not as a discrete subject but in its vital role in the development of the whole child and the promotion of respect, tolerance and understanding of the world around them.

Within our Trust, our geography education will be fully inclusive for every pupil. We will provide a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum, ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to develop a love for geography learning. Furthermore, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity, fascination and understanding about the world and its people that will enable them to be successful learners and responsible citizens. Teaching will equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. (The 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England). 

Geography teaching within ACET is part of a wider curriculum and provision is planned to maximise connections with other subject areas, so no learning is in isolation but, instead, forms part of a wider interlinked provision enabling pupils to apply understanding to everyday life, teaching the children to enjoy learning about the world and to have a better understanding of how people live in different locations. 

Implementation:

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in geography, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout our academies. Geography is taught in half termly units, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. Within ACET, we ensure that geography has the same importance given to it as all other subject areas.

Our geography curriculum is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills and taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using our Schemes of Work Unit documents, alongside associated resources and teacher support documents. Teachers use these documents to plan their geography lessons, and to ensure that there is clear linkage and overlap with skills and learning from other subject areas – for example, maths, when interpreting graphs and other geographical data. The Schemes of Work ensure the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group.

Geography teaching focuses on enabling children to think as geographers and a variety of teaching approaches are used provide high quality opportunities to learn. This includes opportunities for geography learning both inside and outside the classroom. Educational visits are encouraged within the planning for geography with a significant element of learning based around the development of fieldwork skills, initially through the study of their immediate local area and evolving to include the wider local area and comparative studies of non-local areas.

Impact:

We strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for geography learning by providing investigative and enquiry based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to support pupils in gaining a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the Schemes of Work.

Our geography curriculum is high quality, well thought out, linked to pupils’ wider learning and is planned to be progressive. This progression of knowledge, skills and discreet vocabulary progression form part of the units of work. Pupils build and deepen their understanding of the physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments year-on-year and phase-on-phase.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Assessing children’s understanding of geographical vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
• Summative assessment and marking of pupil learning, through discussions with pupils, ongoing assessment for learning and recorded outcomes on paper.
• Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Moderation staff meetings where pupils’ outcomes are discussed with opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
• Portfolios of work collected, assessed and used to drive further improvement of provision.
• Reporting of standards across the curriculum to the Governing Body and Board of Trustees.

 

Additional measures are also employed to measure the impact of our geography curriculum within each academy. Our Academy Improvement Team works across all academies in our Trust, challenging and supporting academy and curriculum leaders within ACET, reporting to each Governing Body and sharing good practice, training and further professional development across the Trust. Members of our experienced Governing Bodies in each academy have designated roles who meet with leaders, support, challenge and hold the academies to account regarding the curriculum intent, implementation and impact.

Inclusion:

All pupils will have quality first teaching. Teachers’ planning and subsequent geography provision will take into account the needs and context of all pupils and reasonable adjustments to access learning and/or specific resources will be made where necessary to ensure no pupil is disadvantaged. Our academies have high expectations with a full range of directed support to ensure all pupils can engage with our high-quality varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve and progress highly from their starting points.

Impact:

We strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for geography learning by providing investigative and enquiry based learning opportunities. Emphasis is placed on investigative learning opportunities to support pupils in gaining a coherent knowledge of understanding of each unit of work covered throughout the Schemes of Work.

Our geography curriculum is high quality, well thought out, linked to pupils’ wider learning and is planned to be progressive. This progression of knowledge, skills and discreet vocabulary progression form part of the units of work. Pupils build and deepen their understanding of the physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments year-on-year and phase-on-phase.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Assessing children’s understanding of geographical vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
• Summative assessment and marking of pupil learning, through discussions with pupils, ongoing assessment for learning and recorded outcomes on paper.
• Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Moderation staff meetings where pupils’ outcomes are discussed with opportunity for a dialogue between teachers to understand their class’s work.
• Portfolios of work collected, assessed and used to drive further improvement of provision.
• Reporting of standards across the curriculum to the Governing Body and Board of Trustees.

Additional measures are also employed to measure the impact of our geography curriculum within each academy. Our Academy Improvement Team works across all academies in our Trust, challenging and supporting academy and curriculum leaders within ACET, reporting to each Governing Body and sharing good practice, training and further professional development across the Trust. Members of our experienced Governing Bodies in each academy have designated roles who meet with leaders, support, challenge and hold the academies to account regarding the curriculum intent, implementation and impact.

Inclusion:

All pupils will have quality first teaching. Teachers’ planning and subsequent geography provision will take into account the needs and context of all pupils and reasonable adjustments to access learning and/or specific resources will be made where necessary to ensure no pupil is disadvantaged. Our academies have high expectations with a full range of directed support to ensure all pupils can engage with our high-quality varied curriculum, providing children with a range of opportunities in order for them to reach their full potential and consistently achieve and progress highly from their starting points.