Geography Curriculum Statement

Geography

Intent – What are we trying to achieve?

At Sacred Heart School, we want our children to love geography. We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be cartographers, town planners, conservationists or weather forecasters. Our curriculum is ambitious and empowers our children to become more aware of the world that they live in. We want our children to use the vibrancy of our great city to learn from other cultures, respect diversity, co-operate with one another and appreciate what they have. Our core values alongside British Values are placed at the heart of everything we do. This often feeds into the geography curriculum. Children across the school visit local parks and beaches, which allows them to take in some of our city’s wonderful historical buildings and landmarks; including the longest pleasure pier in the world, Southchurch Hall Tudor House and the old Garrison. Our pupils are enthusiastic about our world and the environment we live in, we have our own eco-committee who organise litter picking in school and in the local area, along with ideas on saving energy.

We enrich their time in our school with memorable, unforgettable experiences and provide opportunities which are normally out of reach – this piques their interests and passions. For example, some of our children were part of a special event to mark the Commonwealth Games and personally welcomed the Baton to the City of Southend with the Mayor. Then followed this up with a trip down the pier on the newly installed electric train whilst our choir joined in with other local schools to celebrate the occasion. 

Implementation – How is our vision translated into practice?

We believe that teaching Geography should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people and resources: pupils will experience and learn about both natural and human environments, together with an understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes embedded in a language rich curriculum. Geography subject specific characteristics we strive to develop in our pupils are:

• A sound knowledge of where places are and what they are like.

• An excellent understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.

• An extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.

• Fluency in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills.

• The ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.

• Highly developed and frequently utilised fieldwork and other geographical skills and techniques.

• A passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there.

• The ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current and contemporary issues in society and the environment. 

EYFS

In EYFS children are taught through the EYFS Areas of Learning which offer opportunities to learn geographical content, for example through Understanding the World. They will learn geographical content through the use of teacher focus and initiated activities balanced out with that of child initiated to independent learning experiences. The use of sensory, visual and kinaesthetic approaches will be applied to enhance their learning, which will stem from the child’s immediate interest, understanding and knowledge of their own home and immediate surroundings. Their learning will be embedded with the use of accurate and rich geographical vocabulary.

Impact – What is the impact of our curriculum?

At Sacred Heart, the impact of our Geography curriculum is measured in a variety of ways: questioning during lesson time, marking children’s written work, listening to child-led discussion, discussions with pupils across the school about their learning.

By end of the Geography curriculum at Sacred Heart, our children will:

• Have a growing knowledge of the world and their place in it.

• Have a wider vocabulary of geographical terms.

• Aspire to discover more about the world, through reading, travel or the media.

• Know that they can use their voice to express themselves and their opinions.

• Develop their geographical skills, such as, evaluation, creativity, problem solving and enquiry