Curriculum Intent: Geography

Possibilities - To have high aspirations and know all of the opportunities available to them.    Growth - To recognise and celebrate their own individual journey, understanding their own uniqueness and strengths and those of others.                                                                      Communication - To have high levels of oracy; having a rich and wide vocabulary to be able to explain their own ideas and thinking and be able to collaborate and respond to others.

Whole school curriculum vision for Geography
Possibilities To have high aspirations	Our children will have the world opened up to them through learning about different places, some known to them and some unfamiliar. They will be encouraged to be curious and use a range of resources to form their own answers to the questions they have. We want our children to feel inspired and fascinated about the world around them
Growth To recognise and celebrate their own individual journey	We begin by looking at places significant to our children, specifically in our local area. We want them to share their own valuable knowledge before learning about places beyond their own experience, gradually expanding their understanding about the world around them. They will learn about how their actions may impact the world, specifically on the environment.
Communication To have high levels of oracy	Our children will be exposed to subject specific vocabulary throughout their time at The Avenue. They will learn and use it in context to develop a deep understanding. Our children will be encouraged to investigate a range of resources, discussing what they can see and explaining how it links to their existing knowledge and prior learning.

Implementation:

Our pupils should be able to organise their knowledge, skills and understanding into the following threshold concepts:

•  Locality
• Human and Physical Processes
• Investigate and interpret geographical information
• Geographical communication

These key concepts underpin the children’s learning through the year groups from Reception to Year 2. This enables pupils to reinforce and build upon prior learning, make connections and develop subject specific language. 

The vertical accumulation of knowledge and skills from Years R to 2 is mapped as follows:

Progression in Threshold Concepts The procedural and semantic knowledge pupils need to understand the threshold concepts
Threshold Concepts	Reception Step -  Foundations to Basic	Year 1 Step - Basic	Year 2 Step - Advancing to Deep
G1 - Locality	Understand significant places	Understand significant places, defining their physical and human characteristics
G2 - Human and Physical Processes	Similarities and differences in places	Know how the environment is influenced by physical processes and human activity
G3 - Investigate and interpret geographical information	Know places can be represented in different ways	Use and begin to interpret a range of sources of geographical information	Use and interpret a wider range of geographical information
G4 - Geographical communication	Know some subject specific vocabulary and use in conversation	Communicate geographical information in a variety of ways including within experiences of fieldwork

Threshold Concepts	End Point
G1- Locality	By the end of Year 2... Our children will have a good knowledge of the world around them. They will be able to talk about the UK and its place in the wider world. Through interpreting evidence, they will be able to make comparisons between different locations and talk about the processes that take place. By the end of Year 2, our children will be able to interpret different evidence and use key vocabulary to discuss this. They will be equipped with a range of knowledge about different people and places, appreciating the world’s diversity.
G2- Human and Physical Processes
G3- Investigate and interpret geographical information
G4- Geographical communication

Aspirations For The Future

Pupils develop an understanding of how subjects and specific skills are linked to future jobs.

Here are some of the jobs you could aspire to do in the future as a Geographer:

·         Marine Biologist (studying the oceans)

·         Ecologist (looking at the relationship between people, plants and animals in different habitats)

·         Weather presenter

·         Farmer

For more careers, please visit First Careers.

Impact

Assessment

Through the explicit teaching of the Geographical skills, both the teachers and the pupils assess their learning continuously throughout the lesson. Our assessment systems enable teachers to make informed judgements about the depth of their learning and the progress they have made over time.   

Pupil Voice

Geography is....

“So we know where we live and where the shops are.”

“It’s where you learn about maps and the world.”

“It’s about when you’re discovering about the world.”

“We learn about continents and about what’s special about the country

Snapshots

Here is what Geography looks like at The Avenue: