Geography Intent, implementation and impact 2022

Intent

At Beech Street we want to inspire curiosity in our children by starting off their early learning by looking at their amazing local area and the people in it. We want to take them out into the local area to physically observe and investigate the world around them. As the curriculum expands and compares their locality with other places in the world this will deepen our children’s understanding of their place in the world and allow them to explore it with confidence and independence.

Our ambitious curriculum was chosen to give our children the knowledge and skills they need to take on their role as active citizens in today’s world. It has the same challenging ambitions for all pupils allowing them to work in their own way to answer key questions.

We want our children to be passionate about looking after their local area, wildlife and shared spaces as well as having knowledge and awareness of our oceans and world events. We know how important a strong sense of community is at Beech Street and we will encourage our children to develop this with us by making links to local places within easy reach.

Implementation

In EYFS through Understanding the world teachers will provide opportunities for children to make sense of the world around them. Pupils will observe and compare aspects of the world, finding out about people and places and their local environment.

In KS1 and KS2 teachers use a range of teaching approaches appropriate to the content of the lesson to allow our children to acquire knowledge and apply it in meaningful contexts. As in other subjects, we use discussion and questioning to check geographical learning, identifying misconceptions quickly and providing immediate feedback. Teachers plan for questions and tasks to challenge our most able pupils.

Teachers refer to maps in classrooms linking them to both current and previous learning. Maps are an important focus in our curriculum and are visible at all times. We refer to them at every opportunity and children are encouraged to access maps and atlases during reading times. High quality texts are available for use throughout school and at Beech Street we are passionate about promoting reading in every subject. In Year four one of their class reads is ‘The Boy who Biked the World’ which they track as a class using google maps. In Year one we read a range of books linked to geography and science such as ‘The Weather Girls’ and Sam Usher’s weather books. Year 6 read Kensuke’s Kingdom as a whole class read linking it to their map.

The importance of local geography

We believe strongly that children should have a rich geographical understanding of their local area. This is why local geography and fieldwork is woven into our history curriculum to ensure it is explicitly taught and links with larger geographical themes made. Nursery plan a route to the local supermarket where they discuss local jobs. Year 1 plan routes to the local park and visit to look closely at wildlife and plants. We make links with a local group who support a small group of children to access forest school. On our whole school career day we actively encourage people with local links to come and visit school to inspire our children.

Impact

Pupil voice

We believe that if children have become knowledgeable and skilful geographers, then they will be able to articulate their understanding with confidence. This is why pupil voice is an important tool in assessing whether children have made progress.

In particular, it is impact evidenced by the pupils’ ability, willingness and confidence in addressing and discussing each unit’s key question, giving a response focusing on geographical vocabulary, skills and concepts.

In Reception learning is recorded in floor books. These show samples of work and examples of children’s responses to discussions and questions giving an overview of each unit.

In Year 1-6 children record their learning into humanities books. Children are supported to achieve their outcome in different ways in order to ensure that each child can achieve in geography.