We are Geographers!
Geography Curriculum Intent
Intent:
St Martin’s use Developing Experts’ KS1 and KS2 geography curriculum to inspire pupils to become analytical and inquisitive thinkers who cumulatively develop an expansive understanding of their world. Building curiosity and deeper thinking is at the core of our approach and we aim to equip pupils with the skills to think like geographers and the knowledge to foster a deep curiosity about the world. Our lessons encourage deep and diverse thinking, ensuring pupils can build knowledge free from stereotypes and be informed by diverse physical, environmental, and cultural perspectives.
Our geography curriculum is aligned with the National Curriculum and is focused on developing pupils’ geographical skills, substantive knowledge and disciplinary knowledge. In addition, we emphasise skills that will benefit pupils outside the classroom, such as map reading, spatial awareness, global awareness and knowledge of environmental issues.
Understanding the world and its diverse cultures is crucial for developing pupils’ cultural capital. Our curriculum is designed to be inclusive, recognising the diverse global experiences of pupils and ensuring it meets the needs of everyone. With this in mind, each of our sequenced units seeks to level the pupils’ cultural capital through open-ended questioning and cumulative knowledge.
Our curriculum also addresses local issues, encouraging pupils to become aware of and care about the environmental issues affecting their local area.
Implementation:
Developing Experts’ geography curriculum organises knowledge into the four key strands outlined in the National Curriculum: locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography and geographical skills and fieldwork.
Every lesson in Developing Experts’ geography curriculum begins with an enquiry-based discussion. This allows teachers to assess prior knowledge while allowing pupils to share their experiences. At the end of each lesson, the pupils will be able to answer the question posed at the start. This cyclical structure allows for flexibility and reinforces prior learning.
Our curriculum prioritises the depth, rather than the breadth, of knowledge. While pupils will not learn about every country in the world, they will frequently re-visit knowledge to develop a deeper understanding of certain topics. For example, the UK is covered in-depth in Years 1, 2, 4 and 5, while European culture is taught in both the ‘Italy’ unit in Year 3 and the ‘Europe’ unit in Year 4.
The curriculum is coherently planned and sequenced in this way so that it is innately ambitious.
In alignment with the Ofsted Education Inspection Framework, the spiral and cyclical design of our curriculum allows each ‘block’ of knowledge to reintroduce those that came before it, meaning that prior learning is continually reinforced. Recap prompts, AfL questions and topic threads are all built into the curriculum. It is closely linked to literacy, providing pupils with opportunities to share ideas and experiences, engage in extended writing tasks and conduct research. We have also incorporated opportunities for pupils to explore their own interests by selecting a topic to research, fostering independence and curiosity. Cross-curricular links are included where appropriate to allow teachers to consider connecting a lesson to another curriculum area, such as science, DT, maths and art.
Fieldwork:
Fieldwork is an important element of our geography curriculum. Through completing fieldwork, pupils will gain the skills that create competent geographers: observing, measuring, identifying, classifying, recording data, communicating, reflecting and collaborating.
Throughout the curriculum, we emphasise the need for teachers to be familiar with their local area and comfortable discussing this with their pupils. Since much of the pupils’ learning is focused on their local area, including their school, teachers will need to provide their own maps, resources and local imagery. We have provided guidance and information on this within the relevant lesson plans; however, to get the most out of a lesson, teachers should add their own local knowledge and resources. Teachers should use our lesson editing and AI lesson builder tools to help them with this. We also recognise the need for fieldwork to be meaningful, with clearly outlined targets and learning outcomes, and we have incorporated this into all of our fieldwork sessions.
Year 6 ‘My Place’ unit:
This last unit of our sequenced curriculum forms the cumulative end of the pupils’ primary learning and celebrates everything they have learned throughout their geography journey. It allows pupils to showcase their geographical knowledge and skills by producing a project about a special place that is meaningful to them. This final unit is a demonstration of each pupil’s curiosity and critical thinking that has been nurtured through their time in primary school.
Impact:
As outlined in the sections above, our geography curriculum champions curiosity. We want pupils to leave every Developing Experts lesson with the desire to learn more about each topic. Our curriculum encourages pupils to explore their own interests and dig deeper into the knowledge that has stood out to them.
With this in mind, instead of providing separate end-of-unit assessments, the sixth lesson in every unit functions as an open-ended assessment of pupils’ knowledge and skills. We have embedded our assessments in this way so that pupils can fully express their depth of knowledge. Teachers can use their pupils’ work to assess skills, understanding, gaps in learning and misconceptions.
“The study of geography is about more than just memorising places on a map. It’s about understanding the complexity of our world, appreciating the diversity of cultures that exists across continents. And in the end, it’s about using all that knowledge to help bridge divides and bring people together.”
– Barack Obama.
"Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future." - Michael Palin.
The Geography subject lead is Mrs Ming