At Townville Infant and Nursery School, we aspire to offer the best possible early education for all our children in a happy, safe, inclusive environment.
Through our geography curriculum we aim to ensure our children:
- Develop a fascination of the world that will stay with them through their lives.
- Explore and learn about their local environment and community in order to develop an awareness of their position and location within the world.
- Use this awareness to challenge their thinking and to make connections between their local surroundings and that of contrasting areas to provoke and provide answers to questions about natural and human aspects of the world.
- Develop as inquisitive geographers by exploring and identifying characteristics of the United Kingdom and its countries through the use of globes, maps, aerial photographs and atlases.
- Use geographical vocabulary and skills to describe, explain, compare and evaluate human and physical geographical features.
- Take part in fieldwork to enhance their understanding of human and physical features and the impact that they have.
- Investigate maps with curiosity in order to interpret and devise their own and use locational and directional language to describe the features that they discover.
- Explore, appreciate and understand the world and how it has evolved into the world we live in today.
This builds upon the children’s prior knowledge gained through the foundation stage for Geography where children:
- Explore the natural world around them, making observations.
- Know some similarities and differences between the natural world around them and contrasting environments.
- Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter.
- Describe their immediate environment using knowledge from observation, discussion, stories, non-fiction texts and maps.
Our Key Stage One curriculum builds upon children’s geographical learning in the EYFS ensuring full coverage of National Curriculum programs of study through carefully constructed progression maps. Our curriculum design offers children the ability to revisit and build upon prior knowledge so that they know and remember more whilst gaining the key skills needed to continue their journeys as geographers through Townville Infants and beyond.
As young geographers, following the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, children in the EYFS learn about similarities and differences between the natural world around them and other contrasting environments. They draw on their experiences and what has been read in class to understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including the seasons and changing states of matter.
At Townville Infant and Nursery School, Geography is taught through a 2-year rolling program designed to inspire children’s curiosity to know more about the world we live in and to develop as keen geographers. Our choice of geographic study reflects the guidance set out in the National Curriculum with specific detail relating to the United Kingdom and its countries, the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world and how they change over time and the ways in which we study geographical information.
Through our carefully planned and sequenced curriculum, we provide children the specific geographical knowledge and skills needed to deepen, challenge and enhance their thinking as geographers whilst ensuring that key concepts such as locational and place knowledge, human and physical geography and geographical skills and fieldwork are revisited within each project, allowing them ample opportunities to revisit, reinforce and embed their learning.
Each year, children study a geography specific project lasting a full term and will revisit and revise their geographical knowledge and skills within the third term as a result of our cross-curricular, thematic curriculum design. Through the development of our knowledge, skills and vocabulary progression document and our curriculum map, we ensure that teachers are clear on the learning and expectations for their classes so that curriculum content is delivered in a progressive and sequential manner enabling children to continually build upon their prior knowledge and skills whilst ensuring underlying principles and meanings of subject specific vocabulary are taught and understood.
Within each geography lesson, children are explicitly told that they are working as ‘geographers’ and are reminded of the
key knowledge and skills they will learn, use and develop throughout their geography lessons before being introduced to and reminded of key vocabulary. Children then spend time revisiting and reviewing prior learning before being introduced to new concepts, knowledge or skills. Our lesson design ensures that children are provided with ample opportunity to consolidate, build upon and apply taught knowledge and skills whilst developing their ability to question and think critically. Ongoing assessment of the children’s knowledge and skills is used by class teachers to ensure that misconceptions are addressed, and next steps carefully planned for therefore enabling each child to make progress.
Geography teaching is monitored regularly using a variety of strategies, such as book looks, lesson observations, feedback and pupil interviews.
Throughout the delivery of each project, the subject coordinator will gathe information regarding the children’s outcomes and work collaboratively with the curriculum lead to plan appropriate next steps for future learning, as well as to provide an overview of teaching and learning within geography across school.
As a result of our carefully and skillfully sequenced, planned and taught geography curriculum, children will:
- Understand that Geography is the study of the world in which they live.
- Be inspired and curious to further develop their knowledge about the world and how it has changed over time into the world the live in today.
- Understand their place within the world through study of geography in their immediate area and be able to
- apply this when learning about other places in the wider world using the correct geographical vocabulary to
- describe the similarities and differences in human and physical features.
- Remember more about geography and the world we live in. They will recall prior knowledge and skills confidently apply them to new learning
- Continue to develop as keen geographers, who are equipped with geographical skills such as interpreting data, reading maps and identifying and comparing locations.
- Reflect and use their knowledge and skills to build upon their learning throughout their next stage of education
The outcomes and impact of our geography curriculum will be evidenced through clear progression within the children’s books, pupil voice and cumulative floor books showcasing the progression of knowledge and skills that has taken place throughout their learning journey.
