Geography
At St Joseph's, our Geography curriculum aims to inspire pupils’ curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about: diverse places and people; resources in the environment; human and physical processes; and formation and use of landscapes. In addition, we aim to develop children’s geographical skills such as: collecting and analysing data; using maps, globes and digital mapping to name and identify countries, continents and oceans and communicating information in a variety of ways. Through our teaching, we want children to enjoy learning about geography. The enjoyment of the subject will be delivered via experiences in the classroom and out of the classroom, such as fieldwork and educational visits.
The Geography curriculum at St Joseph's enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world as well as their place in it. Geography is an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. The curriculum is designed to develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, throughout their time at primary school and beyond.
Our long term planning throughout the school ensures coverage of the National Geography curriculum. Geography at St Joseph's is taught in themes throughout the year. The subject is taught over three theme blocks per year, with the forth theme being a chance to use the arts to revisit knowledge and skills, ensuring that children remember the learning and take it with them throughout their lives.
We have identified the key knowledge and skills of each blocked topic and consideration has been given to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group across the school. Children are encouraged to develop geographical skills in lessons and are challenged by a curriculum, which allows a local and global understanding of our lives and the processes within it. We have high expectations and children are regularly assessed during lessons, following a unit of work and during the forth theme block to make sure that the children haven't forgotten what they have learned!
Geography themes are taught discretely but teachers make meaningful links to other subjects. Cross curricular outcomes in Geography are specifically planned for, with links between Geography and English including the use of a class novel and links to Art and Design and Design Technology.
In Geography lessons, children have access to high quality teaching, which develops their knowledge, skills and experiences. Children are also given opportunities to develop an interest in our world through the use of the outdoors and fieldwork.