Geography
How we Teach Geography
At Crosslee Community Primary School, we have developed a Geography curriculum which is centred around the National Curriculum and designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. The curriculum is carefully sequenced and spaced to facilitate spaced retrieval. In Nursery and Reception children are taught Geographical knowledge and concepts through twelve progressive Understanding the World units. In Key Stage One and Two, the schemas they have built are deepened with new learning which connects to their existing prior knowledge; ensuring long term memories are created.
Our curriculum is designed to identify the 6 or 7 pieces of essential and procedural knowledge that 100% of children need will learn 100% of. Our units are coherently planned and sequenced to ensure pupils acquire essential knowledge and skills systemically, from Nursery up to the end of Year 6. Topics have clear progression through the year and previous knowledge is built upon throughout the key stages. Children build upon their prior knowledge, encoding it in their long term memory to allow children to become successful learners. The acquired knowledge is then rehearsed and revisited throughout the unit. The essential knowledge is given to children on a knowledge organiser along with Geographical vocabulary which is split into three categories: ‘known words’ ‘essential words’ and ‘aspirational words’. Geographical skills are essential to our curriculum and create our WALTs (We are Learnt to…), teaching children how to think as Geographers.
At the start of each Geography Lesson, children are given time and questions to enable them to ‘Bridge Back’ to prior knowledge they have developed in the past weeks, terms or year groups. This enables children to retrieve and rehearse previously taught knowledge so that it isn't forgotten.
Every opportunity is made to focus on children’s locality. This allows them to appreciate and enquire about the human and physical features that shape Blackley, Manchester and the UK. As pupils progress, their growing knowledge, connection and understanding of the world and their place within it will help them to deepen their understanding of World processes that occur every day around them.
The cultural capital of our children is important to us so we ensure to widen our pupils’ experiences through creative and enriching lessons, including opportunities for outdoor learning, going on trips, meeting visitors and using ICT links (using map work to interlink into Topics such as Digimaps). When delivering these enriching lessons, at Crosslee we see it as paramount that we consider the management of the children’s intrinsic load to allow all children to build a schema effectively and retain information.
At Crosslee we believe that all children have a right to a good quality education (Art. 28 UNICEF Charter) and should have an opportunity to access the curriculum of their year group so they can become well-rounded citizens. We adapt our curriculum and pedagogy to meet the needs of all of our children, inclusive of children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities. We have developed a toolkit of strategies to support children with difficulties in Cognition and Learning; Social, Emotional and Mental Health; Communication and Language and Physical impairments in order for them to access and progress in Geography lessons alongside their peers.
Find out more on your child's Geography Units using the following links:
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