Geography

Children start their geography learning in EYFS, exploring and developing their fascination of the world around them. Children in Years 1-6 study a rich and varied geography curriculum with opportunities to learn more about the world and to apply their knowledge from previous years, allowing them to make links between the units studied.

Children’s geographical learning starts with the familiar and slowly builds outwards, from their immediate environment, local area, the UK, to Europe, and the Americas. Their understanding of how their local area fits into the wider world is therefore gradually built upon. We have carefully mapped out our programmes of study to allow children the opportunities to draw comparisons and make contrasts between the areas studied.

Our geography curriculum informs our pupils about:

• The places and communities in which we live

• Our natural environments and the pressures they face

• The interconnectedness of the world and our communities within it

• How and why the world is changing, both globally and locally

• How our individual and societal actions contribute to those changes

• The choices that exist in managing our world for the future

• The importance of location in business and decision-making

Disciplinary knowledge in Geography.

We want our children to think and act like geographers and see geography as a discipline. Using our pedagogical knowledge and research from different geographical bodies, we have interpreted this in three different ways at Barkston & Syston:

• Geographical concepts: making sense of the world and generating new geographical ideas.  Important geographical concepts include; place, space, Earth systems, environment, time, diversity and interconnection. Our curriculum has been designed to allow children to explore these concepts and revisit them throughout their time at our school.
• Geographical practice: working 'like a geographer', focussing on how geographers think and how they find out what they know. Our curriculum provides children with the opportunities to use maps, fieldwork and critical thinking.
• Geographical application: how geographers apply their knowledge to the world. This focuses on everyday experiences, recognising the challenges facing people and the planet and considering how to address injustices and inequalities. This is often linked to our PSHRE curriculum and during our Collective Worship time where we focus on issues pertinent to the local area and wider world.