At St Leonard’s Lower School, we are growing and learning together with God’s Love and our Christian values are embedded in all that we do.

We recognise that every child is a unique individual within God’s creation and it is our aim is to provide learning opportunities that enable our children to develop deep roots to enable them to flourish and succeed. 

Our Geography curriculum is ambitious and inclusive for all, enabling each child to learn and develop the skills and knowledge they need to thrive. It is a relevant, creative, exciting and challenging curriculum planned to support all learners to achieve their full potential, to know more and remember more, and to be prepared for their next steps in learning.

Our aim is to promote spiritual, moral, social and cultural understanding through appropriate curricular opportunities with particular reference to equality and diversity.

Intent: What we want to achieve

At St Leonard's Lower School, we are GEOGRAPHERS! We want our children to love geography! We want them to have no limits to what their ambitions are and grow up wanting to be cartographers, town planners, conservationists or weather forecasters. Our aim is that, through the teaching of Geography, we provide a purposeful platform for exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. We want to ensure that through Geography, pupils are able to explore the relationship between the Earth and its people through the study of place, space and environment. In Geography, pupils in our school will learn the skills of understanding locational knowledge; how and where people fit into its overall structure. We also intend for children to become passionate and knowledgeable about our local community and beyond, by learning through experiences in practical and fieldwork activities.
 

The school is fortunate to have the Stockgrove and Rushmere Country Park on its doorstep and the children work closely with the rangers and the Greensand Trust on a variety of projects.

• To develop open minded, tolerant, respectful and aspirational world citizens who appreciate difference and value diversity
• To develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.
• To stimulate and develop geographical knowledge and understanding and show clear progression throughout the school. 
• To develop enquiring minds and an ability to observe, question, discuss and record their findings using geographical terms.  
• To understand the interdependence of people, animals and plants.    
• To know about measures being taken to protect the environment both locally and globally.

Implementation: We will

• Plan progressive lessons which are rooted in the National Curriculum and Early Years foundation stage curriculum and which are regularly reviewed and developed to ensure they motivate pupils; build on experience and previous study and expand a pupil’s knowledge and understanding of human and physical geography, locations, places and geographical vocabulary.
• Support teachers to access a range of resources and planning materials eg. the Geographical Association, National Geographic kids. 
• Ensure high levels of confidence and knowledge are maintained, through regular discussions with the geography lead, whole-school moderation, staff meetings, and CPD.
• Geography is taught for at least half a term every term for one hour per week.  The subject is explicitly taught in years 1 to 4 and units are blocked to allow children to focus on developing their knowledge and skills, studying each topic in depth.
• Link learning to high quality literacy texts.
• Link learning in Geography to other areas of the curriculum to develop depth of understanding (History, Art, Design, Writing, Computing)
• Develop high quality resources that are tactile, IT based, written graphic and photographic
• Allow children to handle sources, use maps/globes and develop research skills
• Use fieldwork as often as possible in order that children learn in the real environment

• Provide multisensory activities and a wide variety of learning experiences to motivate deep learning, curiosity and investigation
• Visits and visitors are used where possible to enhance and consolidate learning
• Provide opportunities for pupils to work independently in pairs, in small groups and as a whole class inside and outside the classroom
• Use precise tracking and assessment to move pupils’ learning forward
• Develop their ability to evaluate their own and their peers work.
• Regularly monitor the teaching of Geography through lesson visits, book looks and pupil voice.

Impact: The intended outcomes of the geography curriculum

By the end of the Foundation Stage most children will be able to: 

• Observe, find out about and identify features in the place they live and the natural world.
• Find out about their environment, and talk about those features they like and dislike. 

By the end of KS1 most children will be able to: 

• Name the 7 continents and the 5 oceans.  
• Describe the main features of localities and recognise their similarities and differences.
• Be able to name the capitals and countries of the UK. 
• Recognise changes in the environment of localities and how people affect that environment
• Find out and express views about people, places and environments by asking and answering questions and by using their own observations and other geographical skills and resources.
• Use geographical language to describe places.  
• Use maps and an atlas to identify UK  
• Use compass language such as North, East, South and West

By the end of Year 4 most children will be able to: 

• Explain the physical and human characteristics of places and their similarities and differences and know the location. 
• Describe how people can damage and improve the environment. 
• Undertake geographical enquiry, identifying and explaining different views. 
• Locate Europe and surrounding countries on maps and be able to talk about local features. 
• Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones  
• Talk about similarities and differences between regions of the UK and other countries
• Describe elements of human geography such as different settlements over different places 
• Use the 8 points of a compass and grid references 

Monitoring of the Geography curriculum takes various forms. A key component of this is pupil self-evaluation and the confidence they have in discussing work they have completed. Work monitoring throughout all year groups also takes place once a term to compliment this, allowing leaders to ensure our Geographers have the opportunity to develop their skills and knowledge fully. Examples of our Geographers' work is exhibited throughout the school, both in classroom and communal displays.