Geography at Water Mill
Water Mill Primary School
Geography
Intent
At Water Mill, we aim to provide a high quality geography curriculum to inspire, challenge and engage children to understand more and be curious about the world around them. Our values of respect and caring are reflected in the curriculum, as pupils are taught to have respect for and to care about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. The intent for geography at Water Mill is to teach the National Curriculum in a way that reflects our diverse community. An engaging and relevant geography curriculum can help to raise cultural capital and develop connections through people and events in different places and cultures. It will help them to value and understand the diversity of our school and of Modern
Britain. We aim to help children understand how the human and physical features of a place shape its location and can change over time. To understand how the Earth’s features at different scales are interconnected and give pupils the skills to be able to collect, analyse and communicate geographically.
Implementation
The school focuses on developing the skills and knowledge necessary for children to understand changes in the world around them and the impact that they have on the world. Taught through our themes and key concepts we will deliver a progressive curriculum that builds up key knowledge and skills as they move though the primary curriculum.
Key concepts are used to focus learning and these are revisited each year. A concept-led, enquiry based curriculum helps to focus learning and ensure a knowledge rich education and is taught to be remembered, stored in long-term memory and developed. The children are given the opportunity to develop a depth of learning which will allow them to manipulate and transfer knowledge. Pupils will experience learning beyond the classroom, exploring the local environment and geographically significant places.
During their early education the children will begin by learning about their local environment and how place and space is used. They will go on to name and locate continents and oceans of the world as well as identifying the countries that make up the United Kingdom and their capital cities. Children in key stage one will also begin to identify human and physical locations by looking at natural and man-made items in their local area.
In KS2, children will develop locational and place knowledge by using maps, atlases and digital media such as google earth to name and locate counties, countries and cities around the world. They will also examine the environments and landscapes of some of these places. They will use fieldwork and skills to collect and analyse data and to study human and physical processes that have shaped the local area. They will study environments and how human behaviour affects the environment and will communicate geographical information in a variety of ways as well as looking closely at physical and human processes such as urbanisation, volcanoes, earthquakes and global warming.
Key Concepts
|
Concept |
Explanation |
|
Place |
Having a ‘sense of place’ – simply put, what is the place like? Having the locational knowledge to describe where there are – which continent or ocean? Which country? Which local street? This focuses on how we create a sense of place (patterns, behaviour and communication), the specific key human and physical aspects of a place created by a shared human experience. Place is also about geographical similarities and differences between places and the significance of location and links with other places at global and local scales of study. |
|
Location |
How natural and man-made places fit together in the jigsaw of the world. The names, locations and characteristics of these locations. How the environmental and human characteristics of places are influenced by their location, but also how the effects of location and distance from other places on people are being reduced by improvements in transport and communication technologies. |
|
Geographical skills and fieldwork |
This is about communicating geographical information in a variety of ways and interpreting geographical information e.g. maps and atlases. Examining how Earths features at different scales are shaped interconnected and change. Fieldwork enables pupils to have first-hand observation of human and physical features and processes and enhances their locational awareness. It gives hands on experience of using and developing geographical skills. |
|
Environment |
This considers how we use the natural world and how people have the ability to change it. The distribution of natural resources and the positive and negative interactions human behaviour has on the environment. |
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Physical and human processes |
Looking at how people and events can change the physical and human world and the impact these have on the environment. Physical process – an event or sequence of events that occur naturally due to the power of the planet. Human process - things created/affected by people. These processes would not occur without human involvement. |
Key vocabulary and geographical terms are taught through each theme and revisited in subsequent years to ensure depth of understanding.
Impact
Children at Water Mill will be able to know more and remember more as they progress through the geography curriculum. They will understand geographical concepts and have an understanding of the environment that shapes the world that we live in today. They will have developed specific geographical skills, such as reading maps, and skills such as problem solving, asking and answering questions, collecting data, testing and evaluating hypotheses as well as developing a sense of intrigue. The children will be well equipped to use these skills across other areas of learning that will allow them to progress in their learning as they move away from primary education into Key Stage 3.