Geography
The Geography Curriculum at The Pines
The geography curriculum aims to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. It aims to allow children to experience and develop knowledge about human and physical geography in their locality, the United Kingdom and within a range of diverse places around the world. It aims to help to develop children’s transferable geographical skills of being able to collect, analyse and communicate a range of data as well as enhancing their locational awareness to enable them to safely access and understand the world around them.
Intent:
At The Pines we enable all pupils to access a fun and exciting geography curriculum. The curriculum is progressive and relevant to children’s interests and needs and carefully builds on the children’s knowledge, skills and understanding. At The Pines School we are passionate that all children develop their ‘geographical capability’ to the full, through sensory experiences and first-hand experiences in real life settings.
Implementation:
At The Pines, we recognise planning, teaching and assessing a rich, coherent and inclusive curriculum is essential for quality geography learning. The curriculum has been carefully drawn up to ensure all aspects of the National Curriculum are covered at each key stage. Key knowledge and skills are identified for each unit of work to ensure progression across topics and year groups. Prior knowledge is considered to ensure lessons are relevant and take account of the children’s different starting points. Plans identify the key knowledge which will be covered during the topic which will be differentiated for the varying ability levels, for children following the E pathway, outcomes will be assessed against the engagement model. Total communication enables all children to deepen geographical understanding and a topic related progressive vocabulary list is used within planning to maximise cross curricular learning. This is further supported by symbols reflecting key words on all geography plans. Cross curricular work is an integral part of geography. Geography is transferable to all curriculum areas and promotes spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. The local area is fully utilized to achieve the desired outcomes, with extensive opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice. Teaching staff use ongoing monitoring through tracking progress against Geography Skills Ladders or through the engagement model.
The key aim of the Early Years curriculum is to provide high quality play with planning based on themes allowing pupils a holistic approach to learning. Planning for the specific area of understanding of the world aims to guide the pupils to make sense of their physical world and community. Within the continuous provision (activities provided throughout the day indoors and out) children have the opportunity to increase their knowledge and sense of the world around them, listen to stories, non-fiction books and poems and rhymes as well as visit local parks, allotment and forest school. Pupils will have the opportunity to foster an understanding of our diverse world by, engaging with play that is child led, play which is sensitively supported and extended by adults and play that is guided towards specific educational outcomes.
Impact:
Children enjoy learning about the world around them and are enthusiastic about geography. There is clear progression in the acquisition of knowledge and skills. Knowledge and skills and curriculum coverage are thoughtfully identified on all geography plans. Evidence of progress in geography can be seen in planning, children’s work, and through tracking Skills Ladders over time. Additional to this, observations (following the Engagement Model) and work scrutiny gives the adults leading geography confidence in the progression of skills and knowledge and that outcomes have been met. SLT and governors are kept up to date with developments through Action Plans, curriculum meetings and Deep Dive reports. As the children progress through the school they become better equipped to negotiate the complex and changing world in which they live and make sense of their place within it with increasing independence. We encourage creativity and critical thinking to understand the relationships between the human and physical worlds and the effects of humans at both local and global scales. As the children progress, they are encouraged to make informed choices and consider responsible actions that will give them an essential grounding for a fulfilled and happy future.