Our Vision and Intent

Our Geography curriculum is designed to provoke our pupils to investigate, discover and develop a sense of awe about the natural and human world, including their local area and the county in which they live.

We want our children to know about:

• A range of places and environments

• Issues relating to the environment, climate and sustainable development

• The physical and natural features of their local area and the county of Somerset, and how these link to the history of our area.

• The use of maps and atlases at a range of scales

• The importance of conducting field-work to investigate and solve problems inside and outside the classroom

The Tone Valley Partnership (of which we are part) is a rural group of schools and, as such, our pupils do not all experience a broad cultural diversity or a wide range of physical / human geographical features.  Through the study of Geography, we aim to broaden our pupils’ horizons and provide opportunity for them to discover and experience a range of cultures, places and physical/human factors which influence our changing world.  This is turn helps our pupils to realise how nations rely on each other.  It can inspire them to think about their own place in the world, their values and their rights and responsibilities to other people and to the environment.

The School Implementation

Geography is taught through quests (topics) spread across a two-year rolling programme.  Each quest draws on the knowledge and skills outlined in the National Curriculum. Our quests are organised and planned to carefully guide pupils’ understanding of the the world and localities, beginning with their known local area and expanding ever outwards.  As pupils move through the school, their prior learning will inform their current studies and key vocabulary and themes will be explored in a range of contexts.

In addition to the key content outlined in the National Curriculum, we have carefully included opportunities to learn about the geography and development of the local area.

More detail can be found within our plans and overviews.

As outlined in the National Curriculum, pupils will be taught:

Locational Knowledge 

Name and locate counties and cities of the UK, Europe, North & South America. 

Identify human and physical characteristics, key topographical features (including hills, mountains, coasts and rivers), and land-use patterns; and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time.

Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones (including day and night).

Place Knowledge

Understand geographical similarities and differences through the study of human and physical geography of a region of the UK, a region in a European country, and a region in North or South America.

Human and Physical Geography

Describe and understand key aspects of:

• Physical geography, including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle
• Human geography, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water

Geographical Skills and Fieldwork

Use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries and describe features studied.

Use the 8 points of a compass, 4 and 6-figure grid references, symbols and keys (including the use of Ordnance Survey maps) to build their knowledge of the UK and the wider world.

Use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area using a range of methods, including sketch maps, plans and graphs, and digital technologies.

Impact

Teachers and our subject leader regularly review and monitor the extent to which pupils have understood concepts and retained key knowledge.

We do this through discussions with pupils, observations of lessons and through reviewing the work that children undertake in class.  Teachers assess outcomes for pupils every half term and this is monitored by the subject leader so that areas for development can be identified in order that training and enhanced opportunities for learning can be provided.

“Technology may seem to overcome the distances between us in both mental and physical space, but it is easy to forget that the land where we live, work and raise our children is hugely important, and that the choices of those who lead the seven billion inhabitants of this planet will to some degree always be shaped by the rivers, mountains, deserts, lakes and seas that constrain us all – as they always have.”

Tim Marshall in Prisoners of Geography