Geography
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At Irlam Primary School it is our intent for the Geography element of our school curriculum to inspire pupils with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. It helps to develop a range of investigation and problem-solving skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can be used to promote children spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which remain with them for the rest of their lives; to promote the children interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth key physical and human processes. The curriculum is designed to develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, throughout their time at Irlam Primary and also to their further education and beyond. |
In our EYFS the geography curriculum is covered within the Understanding of the World area of learning. Children in the EYFS have the opportunity to look at maps, watch videos sing songs and matching activities. In Key Stage 1 children are given the opportunity to study local as well as more global geography. Our geography topics are often linked to history and English topics to provide a developing context.
In Key Stage 2 rather than teach superficially across many geographical themes, geography at Irlam Primary is taught in depth in fewer topics. This gives children the opportunity to develop comprehensive knowledge and a wide range of concepts and skills of the regions and themes they study. In Key Stage 2 our children have the opportunity to study a good balance of human and physical geography and within this there is a balance between global and local geography. They are able to develop a wide range of geographical skills such as mapping and field work skills They are able to draw comparisons and make connections between different geographical regions. Each unit of work incorporates many cross curricular links with English, art, history and design and technology.
We use a variety of strategies to evaluate the knowledge, skills and understanding that our children have gained in each half-termly unit:
- CPD to ensure that teacher pedagogy and assessment is secure.
- regular feedback marking and pupil voice feedback.
- subject monitoring, including book looks.
The impact of our geography curriculum is that children will have a deep understanding of the world around them and their place in it. They will have developed analytical thinking and questioning skills which will have prepared them thoroughly for the next phase of their education and beyond. The children’s learning journey in geography is assessed each term using the current assessment framework with judgements by class teachers having been informed by the contributions made by children in class discussions and work recorded in their books. Geography is reported on formally to parents at the end of each academic year. Progress of children is tracked throughout their time at Irlam Primary School.
The national curriculum for geography aims to ensure that all pupils:
- develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes.
- understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time.
- are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
- collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes.
- interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
- communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.