Geography

Geography Rationale 
Intent
 
At Christ Church, all pupils will build a solid foundation of skills, knowledge and curiosity which will inspire them to succeed as they reach for their star in life. It is our aim to develop a curiosity about the world and its people, that will remain with pupils for the rest of their life. We will provide a broad and balanced curriculum in which knowledge and skills are built upon progressively and revisited across sequences of lessons, year groups and key stages.
 
Our Geography curriculum shows strong cross curricular links with the texts used in English and links with other curriculum areas e.g. PSHE, RSHE to embed vocabulary and to ensure pupils’ learning is embedded in their personal development.
 
Pupils will leave our school:
• Curious and fascinated to learn more about the world, places and the people in it.
• Successfully using Geographical skills to collect, analyse and interpret a range of sources of Geographical information e.g. maps, globes, photographs.
• Equipped with a secure knowledge and understanding about their locality, diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.
• Gaining first-hand experience of places and people through enriching fieldwork and engaging visits, which is especially important due to the context of our pupil base.
• With a developed fluency in Geographical vocabulary and have the ability to communicate Geographical information in a variety of ways.
• Growing knowledge about the world and topical issues and understand how they can make a difference and a positive contribution to protecting the world.
 
 
Implementation
As they progress through school, all pupils will:
• Experience a broad and balanced curriculum which helps them to develop knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. Planning will clearly show the ‘golden nuggets’ of knowledge, skills and concepts, that we want the pupils to learn in Geography in each year group, each half term.
• Be taught knowledge and skills progressively across the year and year groups, which will be revisited to ensure they are embedded, which is especially important with the mobility within our school and high percentage of pupils with English as an additional language.
• Experience enriching, memorable fieldwork and visits, making full use of the immediate and wider local area to develop pupils’ curiosity and understanding of places and physical and human processes in their locality.
• Develop a strong enquiry approach providing opportunities to ask probing questions, collect, observe, analyse, communicate and record data.
• Explore and use a wide range of physical resources, including atlases, globes, photographs, maps and non-fiction texts to help the pupils take ownership of their learning and develop their understanding of the subject. Interactive displays and a wide range of resources and books in the classroom environment throughout topics will enhance pupils’ learning.
• Develop their explanation and reasoning skills so pupils gain a grounded understanding of Geographical vocabulary and processes. New vocabulary will be displayed on display boards and in books and show pupils’ growing understanding of them. Teachers will model and display sentence stems to help develop pupils’ vocabulary, reasoning and explanation skills in Geography, which is particularly important for our diverse community and high percentage of pupils with English as an additional language.
• Be given regular opportunities to make links between Geographical learning and the wider curriculum – including the spiritual and religious learning – to explore how Geography has and does relate to other aspects of life and experience.
• Understand the positive contributions they can make in protecting the world, using discussions, drama, debates, and assemblies to raise awareness and understanding of topical issues.
 
 
Impact
• Pupils will leave school with the skills, knowledge and curiosity to continue to learn about the world and its people.
• All pupils, regardless of their background, will leave our school with a secure knowledge of their locality, diverse places, people and physical and human processes around the world.
• All pupils, regardless of their background, will have the best opportunity to reach age-related expectations. Standards in Geography will be high and match standards in other subjects.
• Pupils will have a greater understanding of topical issues, the impact these have on the world and how they can make a difference, and share the message of God’s love, by making a positive contribution in protecting and sustaining the world for years to come.
• Pupils respect and can appreciate how religion and Geography each have an important place within our understanding of the world and our lives.
• Pupils will be able to successfully ask relevant questions, collect and analyse data, and draw conclusions.
• All pupils, regardless of their background, will be able to communicate and reason with confidence, explaining, justifying and drawing conclusions.