Geography
Intent
At Scout Road Academy, our intent is to support all children in understanding their role within their locality, country and the wider world. We recognise the importance and relevance of exploring our local area and promoting our pupils’ cultural capital and we want our children to know and understand geography both in a local context and as citizens of the world.
We will develop contextual knowledge of location ranging from our location in the village of Mytholmroyd to globally significant places and build on previous knowledge and skills to improve fluency and accuracy. An understanding of the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world will be developed along with how they bring about variation and change over time. We intend to develop children’s curiosity, cultural capital and a fascination of the world and its people that will remain with children for the rest of their lives.
Teaching will equip 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. Through our teaching, we intend to provoke critical thinking and questions, encouraging children to build resilience to discover answers to their own enquiry and questions. We encourage pupils to explore and research, using first-hand meaningful fieldwork, to enable them to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, and their place within it.
Implementation
Geography is taught through themes with trips and Wow Sessions to engage children but also through cross curricular links with Science, Maths, Computing and History. We use all opportunities to use the school grounds and the local area for enquiry and fieldwork to facilitate meaningful, first hand experiences .Our weekly Forest School sessions provide opportunities for child led enquiry, consolidation, and challenge.
In KS1, children begin to use maps and recognise physical and human features to do with the local area, building to using maps to explore the continents and oceans of the world in year 2. Children use positional and directional language and develop their sense of place in their locality. Further, in year 2, children will begin to compare where they live to places outside of Europe and ask and answer geographical questions.
In KS2, map skills are developed further using digital maps, more keys and symbols and children begin to use more fieldwork skills. Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our lessons build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge. All children expand on their skills in local knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork. Across both key stages, children have a range of opportunities to experience geography through practical engaging tasks beyond the classroom including within Forest School, class trips and a residential trip in Upper Key Stage 2. Key words are displayed in the classroom to be used by children to deepen their geographical knowledge. End of unit assessments are used to check the progression of skills and knowledge and identify whether outcomes have been met
Impact
Understanding both human and physical geography will enable our children to have a better understanding of themselves and the wider society they live in as they grow up to be positive, resilient and determined citizens who can influence the future of our planet.
Children will use geographical vocabulary accurately and understand the different strands of geography, with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. Children will begin to make relevant links from geography to other curriculum subjects, such as history, maths and science. They will also make meaningful links to geography during our Forest School sessions. They will improve their enquiry skills and inquisitiveness about the world around them, and their impact on the world. All children will realise that they have choices to make in the world, developing a positive commitment to the environment and the future of the planet. Children will become competent in collecting first hand data, analysing and communicating a range of data gathered. They will be able to interpret a range of sources of geographical information and they will communicate geographical information in a variety of ways. Children in the school will be able to speak confidently about their geography learning, skills and knowledge including contemporary issues in society and the environment.
SEND
The school promotes inclusion, independence and challenge for pupils with SEND through adjustments based upon individual needs; these may be to the curriculum itself or to access arrangements. Details of these adjustments can be found in Individual Education Plans or devised by the school and sometimes with advice and guidance from external agencies. SEND have unique learning profiles and needs and teachers build expertise over time in teaching the children in their class. For this reason, teachers are responsible for the differentiation of learning in their classes.
