Curriculum Intent Statement - Geography

At Fulwood and Cadley Primary School, we believe that geography should inspire curiosity and fascination about the world and the people who live within it.

Our geography curriculum is ambitious for all pupils and is carefully sequenced so that children progressively develop their locational knowledge, place knowledge, understanding of human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork.

Children's geographical understanding develops from the familiar to the unfamiliar. They begin by exploring their local area and the United Kingdom before extending their knowledge to contrasting places, countries and continents across the wider world.

How We Teach Geography

Geography is taught through carefully sequenced units within our two-year rolling curriculum.

Each unit is driven by a purposeful Big Question, providing a clear focus for geographical enquiry. Teachers identify and revisit relevant prior learning before introducing new knowledge, vocabulary and skills, enabling children to make connections and build increasingly secure geographical understanding.

Children use a wide range of geographical sources, including maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs, digital mapping, photographs and data. They learn how to interpret this information, identify patterns, compare places and use evidence to reach conclusions.

At the end of each unit, children draw upon their accumulated knowledge and skills to answer the Big Question and, where appropriate, make choices about how they present and communicate their geographical understanding.

Thinking and Working as Geographers

We want children to understand that geography is about much more than knowing where places are.

Children are taught to think and work as geographers by asking questions about places, people and environments; gathering and interpreting information; identifying patterns and relationships; making comparisons and using geographical evidence to explain their ideas.

As children progress through school, they are encouraged to ask increasingly challenging questions and make connections between human and physical processes and their impact upon people, places and environments.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is an integral part of our geography curriculum.

Children are given opportunities to investigate geography beyond the classroom, including purposeful exploration of our school grounds and local area.

They progressively develop skills in observation, measurement, data collection, mapping and presenting findings. As their geographical understanding develops, children take increasing responsibility for making decisions about how information should be gathered, recorded and interpreted.

Fieldwork enables children to apply their classroom knowledge to real places and understand that geography is happening all around them.

Developing Independent Geographers

We want our children to become curious, knowledgeable and increasingly independent geographers.

Children are encouraged to draw upon prior learning and independently select appropriate resources to support their enquiries, including working walls, maps, atlases, globes, iPads, reference materials and curriculum loan boxes.

Through our geography curriculum, we aim to develop children who understand their place within the world, are curious about places beyond their own experience and can use geographical knowledge and evidence to understand the connections between people, places and environments.