Geography

Intent:

Many children at Wilbraham come to school with an extensive knowledge and experience of different cultures and places. At Wilbraham, our Geography curriculum aims to nurture that curiosity for the world, the people who live on it and the variety of physical features it contains. The curriculum is progressive and ensures that metacognitive skills are used continuously to create building blocks of prior knowledge and future learning. Through a knowledge and skills based curriculum, we aim to instil our children with an open-minded, analytical and critical attitude towards the World, enabling them to become forward thinking global citizens who are fully aware of the co-dependence of people and their planet.

Implementation:

Geography at Wilbraham is designed within a progressive curriculum which builds upon and revisits knowledge and skills taught year upon year. The units of work in each term are designed to give students a cohesive breadth of knowledge and skills that they can apply locally, nationally and to the wider world. Each unit of work is planned to discover or work towards a big enquiry question, with each lesson having a small focus and piece of the puzzle to enable children to fully understand and tackle the big question. As with all other areas of our curriculum, metacognition is important within our Geography lessons and each lesson begins with a bridge back activity to continue revisiting previous learning and using it as a foundation for future learning.

Teachers are encouraged to use a local or a tangible starting point/stimulus for learning and children use this as their point of reference when considering Geographical concepts, ideas or methods on a wider scale. Outcomes and vocabulary are mapped out on the curriculum document and ensure that all staff are aware of where each child is coming from and where they are heading. This is used to enable all children to access and thrive within the Geography lessons.

Impact

The impact of our Geography curriculum is for children to have a clear understanding of what Geography is and how learning about Geography is relevant to many aspects of life as a global citizen. The curriculum nurtures pupils to be critical thinkers who are inspired to continue learning and build upon the knowledge they have gained during their time at Wilbraham Primary School. Upon leaving year 6, our pupils are able to remember previous learning and explicitly build on this year on year. They have an awareness of Earth’s diversity and key physical and human processes. They have developed geographical skills, fieldwork skills and have an understanding of geography locally, nationally and globally. Pupils begin to understand their wider world and the implications that we as global citizens have on it developing an understanding of environmental issues.