Our school ethos is at the heart of all that we do: we want our children to be motivated to learn, to persevere and to recognise their own successes in a variety of contexts (M+P=S). We believe that Geography should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. In order to develop their intercultural and international perspective, we aim to develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places, including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes. They leave Methley Primary School a global citizen of the future.
Our Methley Magic FIVE (motivation, perseverance, respect, communication, collaboration) are embedded throughout teaching and learning in Geography.
Motivation
Geography provides opportunities for investigation and enquiry, both in terms of the children’s immediate world and from an intercultural and international perspective. Encouraging children to aspire to achieve their own successes, Geography lessons begin with a focus on how the skills could be used in later life: fields of environmental, sociological, geological or geographical skills for example, as well as their relevance to other disciplines such as STEM. We also aim to inspire them by looking at the people behind the study of Geography. As reading is at the heart of our school, texts on key geographers are chosen to enhance learning.
Perseverance
We want children to enjoy and love learning about geography by gaining knowledge and skills, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits. We also develop the children’s ability to apply geographical skills to enable them to confidently communicate their findings and geographical understanding to a range of audiences. The intent is to develop a holistic knowledge of the subject by the end of KS2 in order to create a platform to build on at KS3 and beyond.
Success
We want to give our pupils every opportunity to be successful and so we have developed our Geography curriculum, based on the National Curriculum, which has clearly sequenced content and stages of progression. At the heart of our curriculum is vocabulary development and intrinsic to that- reading. This is evident in Geography planning and teaching.
Implementation
The curriculum is organised into blocks lasting roughly half a term, although this is flexible. Blocks are clearly structured, with key skills and vocabulary identified. Lessons build on previous lessons and units build on previous units (see progression document). Our curriculum is designed so the children can build on their substansive knowledge in 4 key areas: locational and place knowledge, human and physicalgeography, and geographical skills and fieldwork. Teachers plan with considerationtowards the progression of skills and knowledge as the children move through school.Outside of Geography lessons, teachers link Geography learning wherever possible. Children further practise their disciplinary knowledge across the curriculum, for example considering/ describing a setting in physical and human terms in reading. They apply skills across the curriculum, for example locating places in the news/ in a class book on a map or using grid references overlaid on the front cover of a book to aid prediction. Our curriculum is designed to ensure our children are proud of their own heritage and culture (British Values), but also has an intercultural and international perspective because we believe that we can achieve more by coming together rather than staying apart. They leave Methley Primary School a global citizen of the future.
