Geography

Intent

At Roche School we want our Geography curriculum to provide a coherent base of local, national and international knowledge that enables children to understand their world.
We want children to understand and appreciate the interconnected nature of physical and human geographic knowledge and concepts.
We want children to understand how humans have shaped the world in positive and negative ways and the importance of consideration and care for the environment.
We want children to develop and become confident in the associated Geographic skills such as fieldwork, mapping and communicating learning.
We want children’s learning in Geography to inspire their imagination and prompt them to raise questions about their own locality, their country and the planet

Implementation

Our curriculum for geography is based on the progression of knowledge and skills provided by resources from Oddizzi. Progression in these resources mirrors the expectations of the National Curriculum.
The curriculum is implemented under four broad categories;
Place based study,
Locational Knowledge,
Geographical process
Additional opportunities for skills such as fieldwork and mapping.
Where appropriate, geography learning forms part of a topic learning approach but is predominantly taught as a stand-alone subject.
Where possible learning is set within a local context. For example; Year 4 studying rivers carry out field work to find the source of the River Fowey on Bodmin Moor and then canoe along the lower reaches of the river to the point where it meets the sea.
The Oddizzi resources provide a wide range of up-to-date resources including interactive maps, diagrams, aerial photographs, an online encyclopaedia, virtual postcards, quizzes and short film-clips to inspire children.
We emphasise the learning and application of the specific vocabulary associated with the area of study as well as the concepts and skills. We want children to be able to understand and apply the associated vocabulary when speaking about Geography as well as when recording or writing.
The activities include specific reading resources that can be used within the geography lesson or as part of a separate shared reading lesson.

Impact

The impact of the curriculum will be measured in a number of ways;

Teachers will assess learning in geography from outcomes using the resources from Oddizzi. These include pre-prepared Knowledge organisers, quizzes and worksheets as well as from children’s own knowledge Organiser outcomes.
Subject leaders will triangulate assessments by scrutinising work from all classes and obtaining pupil voice to ascertain the impact of learning in Geography.
By the end of key stage 2 children will know about physical features of their local environment, features of the wider environment such as mountains and rivers and features of the world environment such as Rain forests and volcanoes. They will understand how humans are shaping the natural environment.
By the end of key stage 2 children will know about human features of their local environment, features of the United Kingdom such as capital cities and counties and features of the world such as a locality study of a village in Africa or a city in South America.
Children will regard Geography as a subject that they enjoy and that they want to engage with
Children will have a breadth of knowledge about many aspects of Geography and a foundation in the skills needed to be a geographer.