Geography
At Charlton we believe that geography should stimulate an interest in and a sense of wonder about places around the world. We want to help the children make sense of a complex and constantly changing world by sharing and listening to each other’s ideas. The children will explore diverse places, how landscapes are formed and in what way people and their environment can interact successfully together. The children will learn to forgive nature for its sometimes harmful processes and consider the impact this has on the landscape and people. We will remind children that we must be patient with nature and that worldly processes cannot be rushed or relied on.
We will look at how a diverse range of economies, societies and environments are interconnected. We will encourage pupils to build on their own experiences of investigating places both locally and on a more global scale.
Geography prepares young people with the knowledge, skills and understanding to make sense of their world and to face the challenges that will come their way in the future. We hope that through thoughtful consideration, our children will have a good understanding about the world around us.
We want our children to be keen to enquire, research and find answers about the fascinating and powerful world they live in.
The Geography curriculum offers a logical sequence of geographical topics to support progression and curriculum coverage. As a school we use Oddizzi’s Schemes of Work to support our Geography planning.
The Geography curriculum followed at Charlton is a comprehensive curriculum coverage and addresses topics in great depth. It involves three Geography-led topics each year. Skills and knowledge acquired in the first two Geography topics feed into a place-based study in the third topic.
Our aim with the Geography curriculum is for pupils to accumulate knowledge as they progress. For example, in Year 1’s local area study, children learn basic geographical concepts, knowledge, vocabulary and skills through the concrete experience of a familiar place. This then allows them to make meaningful comparisons with the Zambian locality of Mugumareno Village in Year 2. During Key Stage 2, this knowledge of places feeds into regional studies from the Americas, Europe and the UK. Knowledge becomes both broader and deeper as pupils progress and become familiar with an ever-wider range of places. This growing knowledge is also fed by the development of locational knowledge, geographical skills and a growing understanding of human and physical processes.
Progression Narrative
The curriculum assures full National Curriculum (England) coverage, and goes into depth in relation to locational knowledge and geographical processes. Core skills, knowledge, vocabulary and concepts acquired in the first two topics of a year are applied towards the end of the year in the context of a place-based study.
We aim for there to be opportunities for pupils to carry out fieldwork at least once each year. This should have a strong emphasis on geographical concepts and skills, especially map work and data collection/presentation. Opportunities should still also be taken wherever possible to reinforce geographical knowledge and vocabulary, including locational knowledge (e.g. where countries are).
The Pathway we use at Charlton helps meet the requirements of the intent, implementation and impact framework.
• Intent. They help assure curriculum breadth, coverage, content and a structure that enables clear progression in knowledge and skills. (Ofsted Handbook, 157: “It is clear what end points the curriculum is building towards, and what pupils will need to be able to know and do at those end points … The school’s curriculum is planned and sequenced so that new knowledge and skills build on what has been taught before, and towards those defined end points.”)
• Implementation. The teaching activities in the Oddizzi Schemes will help assure lively, effective and appropriate learning based on the structured Pathways.
• Impact. Oddizzi’s assessment frameworks will help demonstrate that teaching has resulted in clear and appropriate outcomes.