At St Patrick's we aim to inspire pupils to become curious and explorative thinkers with a diverse knowledge of the world and the people in it; essentially, to think like a geographer. We want our children to develop the confidence to question and to observe places and patterns, measure and record necessary data in various ways, and analyse and present their findings. Through our curriculum, we aim to build an awareness of how Geography shapes our lives on both a local and global scale. By the time they leave in Year 6, we aim to developed resourceful, active citizens who will have the skills to contribute to and improve the world around them.
Our Curriculum Structure
We have carefully structured our Geography curriculum to ensure that all curriculum objectives are covered twice in each Key Stage, each time layering upon previous learning. Through everything we do we are developing a well sequenced and gradually built knowledge in the 4 areas of substantive knowledge, whilst also providing opportunity for our children to think like Geographers through interwoven disciplinary thinking skills such as identifying patterns in population growth, questioning why countries are differently wealthy or exploring why towns are where they are. We have designed symbols to help children recognise the skills they are using and remember these over time. Please see the diagram below for more detail.
CURRICULUM OVERVIEW
NATIONAL CURRICULUM COVERAGE
Progression of Skills
The nature of the Geography curriculum means that the same objectives are repeated several time over a child's journey through school. In order to ensure that children continue to develop these skills and build on secure prior learning, we have adopted Kapow's Progression of Skills document which is based on the Geographical Society's guidance. Please find further information below.
PROGRESSION OF SKILLS
Learning about other cultures
To supplement our Geography curriculum, we also explicitly teach our children about other cultures from around the world. Each phase studies a country and its culture in depth, exploring its people and their religions, traditions, history and role on the world stage. Each is carefully chosen to reflect as broad a range as possible whilst also linking into the Geography units taught in that phase. The 3 countries chosen are:
KS1: China
LKS2: Peru
UKS2: India
Reception also learn about other cultures but within the context of modern Britain and how we integrate as a society.