Geography

At Marsh Hill Primary School, we aim to deliver a curriculum that is inspiring and ambitious. Our curriculum builds on children’s prior knowledge, ensuring that there is a clear progression of skills throughout both key stages. We aim to deliver high-quality lessons in both History and Geography, using a wealth of practical and online resources.

The geography curriculum at Marsh Hill enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. Although children need to remember key content that is taught, we want to equip children with the skills they need to be geographers. Our curriculum is designed to ensure that teaching equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the earth’s key physical and human processes. We make links with our local environment when possible in order to provide context when learning. As pupils progress through the school, they will be exposed to a range of topics that will enable them to develop and extend their geographical skills to the wider world. Geographical knowledge and skills are progressive and are sequenced to provide the framework and approaches that provide explanation of how the earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives, equipping them well for further education and beyond.

Pupils in EYFS work towards being an "Exceptional Explorer" through planned adult led activities and child initiated activties in the continuous provision.

The aims of teaching geography at Marsh Hill are:

To inspire pupils’ curiosity to discover more about their own locality and contrast this with the wider world.
To ensure children know about the location of the world’s continents, countries, cities, seas and oceans.
To develop in children the skills of interpreting a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
To help children understand how the human and physical features of a place shapes it location and can change over time.

When teaching Geography, we know that children are naturally curious about the world in which they live. They are enthusiastic to learn more about the wider community and contrasting countries. Our long term goal is to provide a curriculum that reflects our school’s local context and heritage whilst at the same time being engaging.

Geography at Marsh Hill is taught in half-termly blocks throughout the year, so that children can achieve depth in their learning. We have moved away from a topic based approach however genuine connections between subjects and topics will be integrated throughout. Careful sequencing of the curriculum enables knowledge to be taught as components and then developed into composite ideas. As children progress, the ideas between components and composite ideas are explicitly taught so that children's conceptual understanding grows. The geography curriculum at Marsh Hill Primary School is based upon the 2014 Primary National Curriculum in England, which provides a broad framework and outlines the knowledge and skills and taught in each Key Stage. Teachers plan lessons for their class using our progression of knowledge and skills document. Teachers have identified the key knowledge and skills of each half termly topic and theses are mapped across the school, ensuring that knowledge builds progressively and that children develop skills systematically. This progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive from year group to year group. Existing knowledge is checked at the beginning of each topic, as part of the KWL strategy (What I know, What I would like to Know and What I have Learned). This ensures that teaching is informed by the children’s starting points and encourages our pupils to be reflective learners. At the end of each topic, key knowledge is reviewed by the children and consolidated as necessary. Teachers aim to provide appropriate challenge to all learners, in line with our school’s commitment to inclusion.

Outcomes in geography books evidence a broad and balanced curriculum and demonstrate children’s acquisition of identified key knowledge relating to each of the identified national curriculum strands, as appropriate to key stage; locational knowledge, place knowledge and human and physical geography. This is in addition to the development and application of key skills, supported by fieldwork. As children progress throughout the school, they develop a deep knowledge, understanding an appreciation of their local area and its place within the wider geographical context. Geographical understanding, as well as children’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is further supported by educational visits and local area walks. We focus on progression of knowledge and skills and discreet vocabulary progression through each unit of work. Children will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

Children are assessed according to their Key Stage National Curriculum requirements based on their progression in skills and knowledge.
Teachers use ongoing assessment to identify where children require additional support or challenge.
Pupils are encouraged to discuss their learning often and this is then used to inform planning going forward. (pupil voice).
The moderation of pupil’s books happens regularly and there is the opportunity for a dialogue between teachers and subject leaders in order to provide high quality teaching.
Images and videos of the children’s practical learning are used as evidence towards key skills.
Annual analysis of children’s progress across the year is carried out by the subject leader.

Documents:

Progression of Skills document for EYFS to Year 6

History and Geography Overview for Year 1

History and Geography Overview for Year 2

History and Geography Overview for Year 3

History and Geography Overview for Year 4

History and Geography Overview for Year 5

History and Geography Overview for Year 6