Geography Curriculum Overview ​ 

Yr Group	Autumn	Spring	Summer
Year 3-4 A	Local Area	Islands - How are Some Islands Special	Climate Change
Year 3-4 B	Biomes	Spotlight Light Years School	Fragile Earth
Year 5-6 A	UK Study	Are There Enough Resources in the World?	Coastal Study
Year 5-6 B	River Tees vs River Meon	La Plagne - a World Away from Light Years

​Geography Curriculum Rationale:
“A high-quality geography education should inspire children’s curiosity and fascination about the world that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.” DfE.

The Geography curriculum at primary level enables children to gain knowledge and understanding of the world, environments, places near and far, as well as the processes that create and affect them. It supports the development of understanding between people around the world and allows children to regard themselves as global citizens, with an awareness of current world events.

Light Years School believes that pupils should:

• develop a natural curiosity about our world.
• be encouraged to develop a desire to find out more and understand our planet.
• explore their world geographically by learning to ask questions.
• be taught how to find geographical information, understanding and reading maps.
• explore possibilities and consequences, understanding differences and similarities.
• be given opportunities to think critically about global and local issues, use field skills to help support their learning and have a sound knowledge of both physical and human geography. 

 
Geography Curriculum Intent:
Through their mastery of our Geography curriculum, children will learn the location of places and regions across the globe and the key features and characteristics of these places. Through an understanding of aspects of both human and physical geography, pupils will discover how places across the globe are both similar and different and how they are changing. This will provide a foundation of knowledge that will help them understand our world. Children moving on to secondary school will have learnt to think critically, value their world and develop perspective; all key skills needed to become geographers as well as a good citizen of the world.

At Light Years, the children will develop their understanding of locations, places, processes and people. including Europe, Africa, The Americas, Asia and global geographical challenges. During each unit, learning will be revisited, drawing upon knowledge gained in previous years as well as knowledge covered earlier in the current unit through purposeful retrieval practice Language development is a key focus.  Through highlighting key geographical vocabulary, as well as a large emphasis on teacher modelling and appropriate scaffolding, pupils develop and broaden their vocabulary. Our school site and the surrounding area offers a range of human and physical geographical opportunities. These areas will be used to support the teaching of Geography and to enable children to experience their local Geography in a hands-on way.
 
Geography Curriculum Implementation:
We begin each Geography lesson with a learning question, designed to promote curiosity. The learning questions are carefully adapted to ensure they make sense to the learners and are within their immediate understanding.
Our Geography curriculum has been developed in a way that links to our aspirational, over-arching topics.  Units run either concurrently or consecutively with our history units dependent on the best fit for our pupils and the topic.
Children are given access to a range of resources to develop learning through atlases, digital technology, books, photographs, and a range of maps.
 
Through our Geography curriculum, children have opportunities to investigate and interpret a range of geographical locations in Britain and across the wider world. We encourage children to become geographers through collecting, analysing, and communicating through discussion their findings. Where possible, we also ensure cross curricular links with Maths literacy and other wider curriculum areas. Geography provides excellent opportunities to support all learning abilities through investigations, outdoor learning and analysing data. We are fortunate to have nearby forests, coasts and open spaces that will be used as appropriate with our pupils.
 
Geography Curriculum Impact:
The geographical journey of children in our school and the experiences we offer, will engage, and inspire pupils to have a love and appreciation of the world we live in. The impact of teaching geography will be seen across the school and will forge important links between home, school, the local area, and the wider world.
By encouraging the enjoyment and engagement in geography, children will develop the skills, knowledge and understanding that will allow them to fulfil their potential. We endeavour to provide guidance and further opportunities to support them in their next steps.
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We expect our pupils to:

• Have an excellent knowledge of where places are and what they are like.
• Have an excellent understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.
• Have an extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.
• Be fluent in complex, geographical enquiry, and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques.
• Have the ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.
• Understand frequently utilised fieldwork and other geographical skills and techniques.
• Have a passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there.
• Have the ability to express well-balanced opinions

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Subject Policy