Geography

Learn both disciplinary and substantive knowledge.

Enhance and Extend vocabulary.

Apply within lesson and across various units and other subjects

Remember and retain knowledge.

National Curriculum and more.

Geography Intent

Our aim at Bridgewater Primary School is for pupils to develop an appreciation and understanding of the world, building a secure physiological and social understanding of the local community, developing and applying this to a wider range of regions, countries and continents of the world. Pupils will make links between these areas of learning, with the aim of developing engaged, motivated and curious learners that take an interest in the world around them.

Geography Implementation

Our Geography curriculum has been designed to expose pupils to both disciplinary knowledge and substantive knowledge, along with subject specific vocabulary.

The National Curriculum says that ‘as pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments.’ To ensure that pupils develop secure knowledge that they can build on, our geography curriculum is designed to competently cover the four main strands: locational knowledge; place knowledge; human and physical geography; geographical skills and fieldwork.

1. The geography curriculum has a vital focus on vocabulary promoting children’s interest and understanding inspiring children to develop a curiosity and fascination about geographical features across the world.
2. Children are provided with opportunity to think geographically relating the near and far, the physical and the human, people and environments, the economic and the social.
3. The geography curriculum deepens children’s growing knowledge and understanding of the United Kingdom and the world’s countries and continents.
4. Children should develop a good understanding of their local area (with a focus on field work), the UK, Europe and the wider world.

The geography curriculum works on a two-year-cycle to cater for mixed year groups. Each year, pupils will begin with a 'my geography' unit, focusing on where we are in the world. The units which begin each year are listed below: 

• The geography of our school. 
• Where are we in the world?
• Where am I in Europe?
• Global caretakers. 
• Trade across the globe.
• Looking after our landscape. 

Pupils will then study another 2 geography units during each cycle, the units that the pupils will study are attached below. 

Impact of Geography

The completion of knowledge mats allows teachers and subject leaders to understand what the pupils have retained, along with any areas which need refining through bespoke quality teaching. Pupil voice is used to enable leaders to assess the impact of the geography curriculum and whether pupils know more and remember more geography-specific terms and content. Book monitoring throughout all year groups also takes place once a term to compliment this.