Geography intent

At Croftlands Junior School, we want the children to leave us with a greater understanding of the world around them – both closer to home and around the globe.

The children will learn skills and experience the work of geographers as they explore their locality. Using learned field work skills, our upper Key Stage 2 children will visit Ulverston to observe, measure and record data on developments to the town. In lower Key Stage 2, our children will follow the river Duddon from source to sea. We will also utilise digital mapping technology to explore changes to physical and human geographical features as well as promoting field work skills in the classroom.

Our curriculum has curiosity at its heart and has been designed to create cross-curricular links to help the children discover a greater breadth of knowledge. Through our curriculum sequencing, we aim to build respectful geographers, whose knowledge, skills and understanding builds as they move through school. Careful consideration has been given to ensure children have opportunities to re-visit concepts and practise skills accordingly.

Implementation:

At Croftlands Junior School our geography teaching is underpinned by United Curriculum, with adaptations to meet our children’s needs. Our Geography progression map sets out the objectives taught in each year group, on a two-year cycle for our Lower School and Upper School. The design of our topic progression provides opportunities for retrieval of previous learning and the explicit teaching of links between old and new material to build understanding.

The children record their work in geography/history books. Each unit starts with a pre-learning quiz and finishes with a post learning quiz to help us assess children’s retention. In lessons, teachers use questioning, and provide opportunities for discussion to support the development of vocabulary, which is explicitly taught and modelled in every lesson.

We have a whole-school approach to working walls, featuring key vocabulary and concepts which are reviewed periodically throughout the topic, is designed to aid retention.

We underpin our geographical knowledge and skills with meaningful field work, for example, visiting Ulverston to conduct surveys based on issues which have an environmental impact of the area.

Impact:

Our curriculum intent is supported by rigorous monitoring from the geography subject lead: recording pupil voice conversations, checking children’s understanding and adapting teaching based on findings.

The careful sequencing of the curriculum – and how concepts are gradually built over time – is the progression model. If pupils are keeping up with the curriculum, they are making progress. Formative assessment is prioritised and is focused on whether pupils are keeping up with the curriculum.

In general, this is done through:

• Pre-learning quizzes at the start of each unit. These assess the extent to which pupils have the prior knowledge that is required to access the new content in the unit. Accordingly, the quizzes are used to identify gaps to be filled prior to teaching the new unit. For example, in a unit about improving the environment in Year 6, pupils need to recall knowledge about the effects of climate change and non-renewable energy use and apply this to new knowledge about renewable energy and mitigating the impacts of climate change. This knowledge is assessed in the pre-learning quiz, and teachers can plan to fill any identified gaps.
• Questioning in lessons. Teachers check pupils’ understanding so they can fill gaps and address misconceptions as required.
• Post-learning quizzes at the end of each unit. These give teachers an understanding of the knowledge that pupils can recall at the end of the unit, and they can be used to identify any remaining gaps to be filled. The quizzes are generally made up of simple recall questions, such as naming key places or features, using map skills, identifying the causes of flooding or giving the effects of an earthquake.

By the end of their time at Croftlands Junior School, children will have:

• Developed their geographical knowledge and skills, allowing them to inquire about, understand and navigate the world around them.
• Gained from meaningful, memorable fieldwork opportunities that last a life time.