Intent

At Petham Primary School it is our intent to provide children with a curiosity and fascination about the world. Teaching should equip children with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. It is our aim to deepen children’s understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, ensure that children have a secure understanding of the formation and use of landscapes and environments, gain confidence and have practical experiences of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills, express well balanced opinions routed in very good knowledge and understanding about current issues in society and the environment.

It is also our aim to deliver a carefully sequenced curriculum that offers our pupils a develops progressively from a local perspective, national and international perspective. Children will be able to track their learning through key skills clearly identified at the beginning of each topic, whilst making links back to previously taught concepts. Vocabulary will be sourced and defined at the outset of study to enable all children to fully access their learning journey through a topic. 

Our school values are central to everything we do, and Geography is no exception. Pupils will demonstrate a sense of leadership frequently throughout aspects of their own learning, particularly when leading elements of their own geographical enquiry and fieldwork. They will learn the importance of organisation by considering resources and materials needed when setting up a fieldwork enquiry. Pupils will  discover the importance of resilience both nationally and internationally, especially during the study of Fair Trade, in lower Key Stage, Two when children will learn how farmers across the world have had to adapt their practice in order to survive. Finally, pupils will show initiative and communication in their study by being encouraged to make meaningful links between key concepts, and recording and sharing the findings of enquiry based learning.

Implementation

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced in order be progressive across two cycles. Where possible, children will begin by learning geographical skills from a local perspective. Over the cycle, the children's study should broaden to include a national and international perspective. 

Place & Location Knowledge|Human & Physical|Fieldwork

The above strands are all mapped out to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge. When covering each of these strands, the content will be carefully organised and evident in a topic title page. Teachers and pupils alike use the skills identified from each of these strands to track their progress throughout a learning journey. Content knowledge, key questions and progressive vocabulary will then be planned for at a greater level of detail in the class long term planning documents. 

Current learning will be evident on a whole class learning journey displayed in every classroom. This provides a constant point of reference to pupils throughout a topic and acts as a reminder of prior learning. Children will be given an opportunity to retrieve what they have learnt at the end of a topic through a carefully planned and differentiated retrieval practice task. Assessment in geography is ongoing throughout, but teachers will use the end of topic retrieval task as a means of more formal assessment and this data is tracked using our whole school assessment tracking system, and monitored closely by the subject leader. 

    What it's like to be a geographer at Petham!

Key theme: Map Skills

EYFS: Our little geographers learn the concept of mapping and the bird's eye view. They use practical skills to generate a map of the whole school building. 

KS1: Our developing geographers use the foundations of map building to conduct a local area walk. They identify key features of the local landscape during their walk. They use their fieldwork to create a map of the local area. They even begin to explore the importance of a key to help others read and understand their map. 

KS2: Our advancing geographers explore mapping on a much larger scale. They use their knowledge and understanding to map cities such as Canterbury and London. They use compass points and grid references to develop precision when working with maps.

Impact