Geography

The Geography Team and the Year 6 Geography Ambassadors

The Geography team consists of Mr Higgins and Mrs Basar.

The Geography Subject Ambassadors are Lila and Tobias.

The Geography Ambassadors support the Geography Subject Leaders to promote and monitor their subject. They are involved with gathering pupil voice, looking at children’s books and sharing their love of Geography. They are very passionate and enthusiastic!

Intent

At Horbury Primary Academy, we aim to provide a broad and rich Geography curriculum that allows the children to develop a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. To achieve this, we will provide them with the very best learning opportunities in the subject, both through class based lessons and additional learning opportunities, in order to inspire our pupil’s desire to become passionate about the world around them. As a result of this, we will provide a progressive curriculum which enables the children to build upon and extend their geographical skills and knowledge.

As part of our curriculum, we will aim to equip children with knowledge of diverse places, people, resources and the difference between natural and human environments. Through teaching purposeful topics linked to these, we will enable our children to develop an understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes whilst also deepening ability to recognise the interaction between physical and human processes and how the world around is continuously changing and adapting.

When children leave Horbury Primary Academy, we aim for our children to have developed:

• A passion for the subject and a curiosity about the world around them
• An excellent knowledge of where places are and what they are like in Britain and the wider world
• An ability to apply a range of geographical skills when conducting investigations and fieldwork
• A secure understanding of geographical terms and vocabulary
• A secure knowledge of their locality and the ability to make comparisons with contrasting locations around the world
• A desire to extend their own learning with effective questioning and independent projects

Implementation

In order to succeed in the delivery of an enthralling and engaging Geography curriculum, we will implement a thorough and consistent approach across school that has been carefully planned with the involvement of the Geography team, senior leadership team, class teachers and teaching assistants. Our curriculum will allow our children to develop key skills and knowledge, which they will then be able to apply to meaningful learning projects and investigations. These will enable the children to achieve the desired outcomes outlined within the national curriculum at the end of each key stage.

Class teachers will be expected to:

• have a clear understanding of the key assessment criteria and sticky knowledge that the children will retain linked to each geographical learning context
• carefully plan a cycle of lessons that build upon previous skills and knowledge and facilitate for progression within the subject
• provide children with the opportunity to examine, interpret and evaluate a range of sources of geographical importance
• extend learning opportunities through purposeful school trips, workshops and visitors
• Implement knowledge mats to reinforce key geographical vocabulary and sticky knowledge facts
• develop links between Geography and the local community
• allow for inclusion in terms of religions, race, cultures, age, abilities and gender
• support and promote British values, political awareness and current issues linked to Geography around the world
• give children opportunities to collect, analyse and communicate a range of data gathered through fieldwork
• provide opportunities for low stakes quizzes in order to reinforce sticky knowledge
• provide differentiated learning opportunities that extend all pupils understand of Geography and provide sufficient challenge
• promote Geography through meaningful working walls within the classroom and around school

Impact

Through our curriculum, our children will be curious about the world around them and have had many opportunities to apply the skills they have acquired throughout their learning journey in order to become budding geographers. As a result of this, children will be able to demonstrate their progression by producing work that is documented within their humanities topic book and through oral discussions.

When leaving Horbury Primary Academy, children will have:

• high levels of engagement and enjoyment when learning about Geography
• know more, remember more and understand more about geographical facts and be able to apply a range of geographical terms
• understand how and when to apply geographical skills
• have a developed knowledge and understanding of the world around them and how it changes
• evidence of their progression against Key Assessment Criteria showing that they are working at the Age Related Expectations
• be inquisitive and motivated to undertake and explore the world in which they live

Year 5 Map Work

The children in Year 5 used atlases to locate rivers around the world. They also used Google Earth to zoom into different continents and countries.

Year 5 School Trip to Nell Bank

At Nell Bank, the children were able to kickstart their topic on ‘Rivers’ by finding out about tributaries, river currents and rock erosion.  In the afternoon, the children took part in orienteering, which developed the children’s map skill knowledge.

Year 3 Map Skills

Year 3 children enjoyed using their map skills to find different places within an atlas. They used the index and the 4 figure references in the back of an atlas to locate places in the United Kingdom.

Year 6 Coastal Physical Features and Processes

The children in Year 6 created clay models showing the physical features found along the Yorkshire and British coastline. In addition to this, they explained how headlands and bays were formed as a result of coastal erosion.

Year 1 Learning their Address

To launch their local area theme in Geography the children talked about their home town Horbury, city Wakefield and country England. They then were asked to recall their house number and street as sticky knowledge for their address. They sent home a picture of their home with a message and labelled their envelope with their address. They posted it in the post box outside school. When they received their letter at home, it prompted the parents to make sure they learn their address to recall at school.