Geography at Eastrington Primary School

Subject Coordinator: Lucy Hardcastle
At Eastrington Primary School we shape our geography curriculum to ensure it is fully inclusive to every child. Our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for Geography; providing a broad, balanced and differentiated curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills; and for the children to develop a love for geography.

Intent
At Eastrington, we aim for a high-quality geography curriculum which should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about places and people; resources in the environment; physical and human processes; formation and use of landscapes. We also want children to develop geographical skills: collecting and analysing data; using maps, globes, aerial photographs and digital mapping to name and identify countries, continents and oceans; and communicating information in a variety of ways. We want children to enjoy and love learning about geography by gaining this knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits.

Implementation
In ensuring high standards of teaching and learning in geography, we implement a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school. Geography is taught as part of a half-termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum. At Eastrington, we ensure children are given the opportunity to develop a range of geography skills including: use geographical resources, to use atlases and mapwork, to understand the local area and read compass and grid references. We ensure that geography has the same importance given to it as the core subjects, as we feel this is important in enabling all children to gain ‘real-life’ experiences. For example, using the local area to follow maps in Key Stage 1, to comparing the similarities and differences in environments and communities in Lower Key Stage 2, through to debating world issues in Upper Key Stage 2.

Impact
The impact and measure of this is to ensure that children at Eastrington are equipped with geographical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the next stage of their learning and for life as an adult in the wider world. Children should feel more confident to talk about their learning in geography using appropriate vocabulary and a range of geographical resources for example, atlases, maps, globes and grid references. They should understand about the terms human and physical geography and learn more about their local area. Most importantly, we want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about geography, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future.