The Wolfson Hillel geography curriculum seeks to develop children’s understanding and fascination of the world and the people in it, whilst equipping them with a range of geographical skills focussing on reading, navigating and explaining maps through different media and scales and noting how the Earth’s features have changed over time.
The key themes of human and physical geography are woven throughout the children’s learning in order to give them a clear understanding of these geographical terms whilst also allowing them to make connections between the different characteristics. Throughout their studies, children will be given opportunities to conduct fieldwork enquiries where they will collect, analyse and record data.
Topics have been selected to provide a varied, broad and ambitious curriculum, whilst following the objectives of the National Curriculum. The themes chosen to ensure that children learn about contrasting areas of the world, whilst deepening their understanding of their local area and London. Each theme seeks to consider a combination of skills and knowledge as well as encompassing geographical terminology and an array of map skills.
In Early Years, children will learn about the different seasons with a focus on winter. They will consider what recycling is and how it helps to look after the environment. There is also a large focus on looking at, and comparing, different cultures whilst beginning to look at simple maps to explore where in the world people with different cultures live.
In Key Stage One, children will develop knowledge of their own locality, focussing on the UK and the geography of our school. Understanding the features of a map, whilst securing a knowledge of direction, will enable pupils to be able to begin to draw simple maps. They will discuss how the weather affects our lives and compare hot and cold areas of the world.
In Year 3, children will continue to examine the UK but focus on the human and physical characteristics of regions of the UK. They will embark on a comparative study of Wales to understand the differences between our regions. Pupils will learn about the water cycle and take part in a study about the coast- culminating in a trip to the seaside to explore the geographical features of the coastline. In Year 4, children will look at the geography of Europe, identifying features on a map and focussing on the settlements and land use in the Mediterranean. They will discover how volcanoes and earthquakes function and explore the consequences of natural disasters.
In Upper Key stage 2, pupils will undertake a study on rivers and river erosion, using digital map skills to track changes and visiting a river to understand its features. They will look at the distribution of natural resources and settlements in North America. Children will learn about the vegetation and investigate how climate affects the world. They will investigate the cause and effect of social responsibility and influence. Pupils will have a good understanding of map skills, and scaling and be able to use various types of coordinates and grid references.
A Geography unit is taught in each year group in Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 for 3 weeks over a course of 9 lessons. Geography happens 3 times throughout the academic year on rotation with other foundation subjects. Lessons are planned using a range of resources and mapping media. ‘Digimaps’ programme for school is incorporated into lessons, enabling children to understand how to read a map, zoom in on key areas, measure distances, examine different time and climate zones and locate different places using the National Grid.
The subject lead has a clear overview of the topics being taught across the school and meets with other subject leads to consider cross-curricular references. Year group planning takes place with the subject lead to ensure all lessons are well thought out and all objectives and skills are met. The focus throughout the curriculum on human and physical geography enables teachers to create clear links so that by Year 6, children are able to independently identify the different characteristics in their learning and how the two strands interrelate.
These strands, along with key geographical learning and terminology, are highlighted on the subject knowledge organisers which are referred to during all lessons. The use of retrieval is also paramount in ensuring learning is meaningful and remembered, to enable children to take their geography learning and understanding and apply it to everyday life. Retrieval practice is carried out in lessons through daily quizzes, talk partners and end-of-unit assessments.
Our assessment grid can be found here.
Geography is assessed against the key skills and objectives in the Wolfson Hillel assessment grid. Each lesson has a learning objective taken from one of the objectives set out in the grid. There is also clear indication as to which key geographical strand the lesson links to with bullet points laying out the direct links to the human or physical geography covered in the lesson. Furthermore, where covered, map skills are also incorporated onto the learning objective allowing the teacher to assess each child’s ability in all of these areas. Geographical content is also assessed through retrieval quizzes at the start of each lesson and end of units as well as through marking feedback provided to children in their written work. Moving on questions are written by teachers to assess a deeper understanding. All the above monitoring allows teachers to highlight any areas of weakness and inform future planning.
The Subject Lead attends regular training to ensure they are up to date with current thinking. Staff training and regular updates take place throughout the year to ensure all teaching is of a high calibre. Regular lesson observation, planning and book scrutiny and child interviews take place to uphold best teaching practice.
Geographical terminology is a big focus in our curriculum. Keywords are shown and spoken about and incorporated into the children’s written and oral work. Children are also exposed to different geographical texts and atlases and encouraged to question and make links between key themes.
Geography is planned and executed to enable all pupils to achieve. Careful consideration is given for SEND pupils through planning and teaching, this includes blown-up maps, cloze procedure writing stems, word banks and working walls. All work is carefully differentiated to allow everyone to meet the lesson objectives.