Geography at St Benedict’s
Intent
Our St Benedict’s curriculum is designed with the intent to maximise the potential of all of our pupils; intellectually, socially, morally, emotionally and culturally. We take every opportunity to encourage a love for learning within all of our pupils, based around a resilience for learning and achieving greatness. Most importantly we allow our children to learn in a safe and stimulating environment, where their views are valued.
The geography curriculum at St Benedict’s is designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Children investigate a range of places – both in Britain and abroad – to help develop their knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s physical and human processes. We are committed to providing children with opportunities to investigate and make enquiries about their local area so that they can develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes our local area unique and special. Skills are mapped out, to ensure that pupils build on secure prior knowledge over a two year rolling programme and that the school’s approaches are informed by current pedagogy.
Through high quality teaching, we develop the children’s ability to apply the following geographical skills:
- Geographical enquiry
- Direction/ Location
- Drawing Maps
- Representation
- Using Maps
- Scale/ Distance
- Perspective
- Map Knowledge
- Styles of map
Implementation
Geography is taught through our CUSP curriculum. Teachers identify the key knowledge and skills of each topic and consideration is given to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group across the school.
The local area is also fully utilised to achieve the desired outcomes, with extensive opportunities for learning outside the classroom embedded in practice. Planning is informed by and aligned with the national curriculum. Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion. Outcomes of work are monitored to ensure that they reflect a sound understanding of the key identified knowledge. Within our knowledge-rich approach, there is a strong emphasis on people and the community of our local area.
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) follows the ‘Development Matters in the EYFS’ guidance which aims for all children in Foundation Stage to have an ‘Understanding of the World; people and communities; the world and technology’ by the end of the academic year.
Impact
We ensure the children have access to a broad and balanced Geography curriculum and they can demonstrate an acquisition of identified key knowledge. Children reflect on their learning and are actively encouraged to identify their own target areas, as well as reviewing their own learning styles, with support from their teachers (reflection sheets).
Teachers complete subject tracking sheets to identify pupils’ progress across the school and ensure smooth transitions throughout the school.
This monitoring takes the form of:
- Lesson observations and feedback;
- Learning walks and pupil voice conversations;
- Planning scrutiny followed by support where necessary;
- Book scrutinies on a frequent basis;
- Data analysis.
