The Importance of primary geography

Geography holds a valued place in our St Barnabas curriculum. Primary geography enables students to develop essential knowledge of the world around us, gain geographical skills and grapple with concepts (e.g. What environmental benefits are there to eating seasonally? Year 5 geography question). Primary geography lays the foundations for personal and academic growth. Our geography curriculum embeds a secure knowledge of our local area whilst identifying and recognising our global interconnectedness. We are proud to be a multi-cultural school where children and their families have the opportunity to help us all learn about new places. We have a dedicated International Evening where we perform dance, poetry and plays from a range of cultures as well as enjoy a global feast.  These experiences help our students learn about different cultures, communities and societies helping generate global awareness, curiosity and empathy.

Our Ambition

We aim for children to develop:

  • An excellent knowledge of where places are and what they are like.
  • An excellent understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.
  • An extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.
  • Critical thinking. Geography encourages critical thinking by prompting students to ask questions about how and why the world is the way it is, such as understanding the effects of climate change, population growth or natural disasters.
  • Cross curricular learning in geography. By combining geography with other subjects, students can gain a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the world around and how various areas of knowledge connect e.g. combining geography and maths through map reading using coordinates and scales.
  • Real world examples of geography in use for example experts from Hoare Lea came and gave a presentation on sustainable manufacturing.

We ensure the Geography curriculum is covered by using the Cornerstones Curriculum scheme where geography is taught through Geography units but also across history, science, DT and Art. The cornerstones scheme provides a secure knowledge rich curriculum, amble opportunities for skill progression and is steeped in a recursive approach; so students are able to embed their knowledge and skills over time. We adapt the cornerstones curriculum to create our own engaging and deeper learning experiences which are relevant for our children e.g. organising a fieldtrip to Hill End. We ensure our curriculum is tailored to our school through the creation and implementation of  Knowledge Sequence Organisers (KSOs) that summarise the essential knowledge.

In our commitment for all children to succeed, we have adapted the cornerstones curriculum further to meet the requirements of our context so have carefully developed six key learning questions to be explored for each geography topic. These questions then make up our Knowledge, Sequence, Organisers and provide a weekly focus for each session. An example question in geography in Year One lesson was, “What landmarks are in Oxford and why?”  Knowledge Sequence Organisers have been developed to ensure learning is sequential. By ensuring all pupils master foundational concepts and knowledge before moving on they can build their confidence and enable them to succeed. Further; we recognise the need to scaffold learning so provide definitions of technical vocabulary on our geography Knowledge Sequence Organisers. This supports all learners but is particularly useful to our disadvantaged learners and children with English as an additional language. We use these knowledge sequence organisers as a means of supporting our students to transfer information from their working memory into their long term memory where it can be stored and later retrieved. Knowledge sequence organisers reduce extraneous cognitive load.

Geography sessions are lively and engaging. To support students’ metacognition we provide regular opportunities for practice and retrieval within lessons. We harness student’s natural curiosity using learning questions as the basis of each session. Geography is delivered through high quality teaching, drawing on the best practice by the using the most effective strategies and appropriate resources to support and challenge all learners (see our teaching and learning approach).

The impact of our geography curriculum is evaluated through continuous and systematic assessment and monitoring. We use both formative and summative assessment in our sessions. For example we regularly use mini whiteboards, ABCD cards, open questions and quizzes. We use these methods (and many more!) as a means of addressing misconceptions quickly as well as measuring progress over time. We also assess knowledge at the end of each unit of work.  Assessments are shared with parents at parents meetings and through the end of year report.

Geography is monitored and reviewed by the Geography subject leader through a systematic range of activities including book monitoring , learning walks, pupil voice and teacher questionnaires.  There is a link governor for Geography who monitors the work of the subject leader.

Here’s what the students say about Geography at St Barnabas

“I liked the nice tastes from International Evening. I tried new food.”  Year One child

” I’ve learnt about human behaviour and how to behave on this planet. It’s things like watering plants and picking up plastic from the floor. It’s very important.” Year Two child

“It was fun making the 3D contour maps which was art and geography, it helped us understand hills and mountains on maps more. Year Five child

To discover more about the cornerstones Geography curriculum click here

Geography Cornerstones Curriculum Overview