Subject Lead: Mrs Nicola Rillie 

                                                                    Intent, Implementation & Impact Statement 

At Weeton St Michaels, our curriculum is designed to develop children’s characters, intellect and curiosity.  We have high aspirations for all our children and aim to offer them a broad, challenging and engaging curriculum. It is our aim, that by the time children leave our school they will:

• Be kind, confident, well-mannered, thoughtful members of society who embody our Christian values.
• Be ambitious for their futures.
• Have a love of learning. 
• Respect each other regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, culture, gender, disability and wealth.
• Be courageous advocates for the causes they believe in.

Intent

At Weeton, through our Geography curriculum, we aim to expand geographical vocabulary, increase our children’s knowledge and curiosity of the wider world, understand geographical concepts and promote high aspirations. At Weeton St Michaels we currently use The Learning Challenge Curriculum, and we adapt it for our mixed age classes.

We seek to create a life-long love of the subject, through teaching our children about diverse places, people and resources. Through the study of natural and human environments, as well as physical and human processes, our desire is to provide our children with a sense of awe and wonder about the world they live in.

As they continue on their journey of Geography, we aim to foster a deep understanding of the subject that develops alongside their geographical skills. Our aim is that our children go on to apply these skills across all subjects and forward into secondary school and beyond.

Our curriculum is designed to provide our children a deep understanding of the specific subject they need to describe, question and discuss the world, as well as their place in it. Our pupils are encouraged to recognise that they have a voice and to use it confidently to debate topics that they feel passionate about, for example, deforestation or renewable energy. We aim to produce well-rounded individuals by providing our children with opportunities to expand their cultural capital and experiences of the world.

Implement

Based upon the National Curriculum and the individual needs of our children, we have created a Geography progression map, which sets out the objectives taught in each group each year. Geography is taught as part of our two-year cycle for each age phase. The curriculum begins in our reception class, through Understanding the World, which matched our I wonder questions

We alternate our Geography and History topics, ensuring that our children receive well-rounded teaching of the humanities subjects throughout the year. At times, we take the opportunity to create links between the two subjects to help solidify the learning taking place. We use writing in Geography as an opportunity for children to showcase what they have learnt and embed their knowledge. Maps are displayed throughout the school and teachers are encouraged to reference these when appropriate during all lessons to help to develop an awareness of the globe.

Teachers use questioning, and provide opportunities for discussion and investigation to support the development of vocabulary, which is explicitly taught and modelled by teachers in every lesson.

Key geographical knowledge and language (such as, the name and location of continents, countries, capital cities and oceans) is revisited frequently, to make learning memorable, relevant and easy to retrieve. We support learning with trips to inspire our children and widen their cultural experiences. For example, Our local area, Weeton & Flyde Coast. Teachers are encouraged to use a range of resources such as videos, photographs and newspaper articles during lessons to help create immersive learning experiences.

EYFS

In the Early Years, Geography is taught via the Early Learning Goals linked to the Specific Area ‘Understanding the World’. The majority of learning in this area occurs through adult intervention when the children are in continuous provision. The learning is driven by ‘I wonder’ questions where the pupils can make sense of their own local area and surroundings, understanding changes in seasons, comparing hot and cold places and researching other countries.

By the end of the early years, children should be able to:

• Describe their immediate environment
• Explain some similarities and differences between life in this country and life in other countries.
• Understand some important processes and changes in the natural world around them, including seasons and changing states of matter.

We consider that the ‘I wonder’ questions prepare pupils to continue their learning successfully in year 1 as the pupils will have a foundation vocabulary and the ability to ask questions, which is a key pedagogy of teaching geography.

Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

We ensure that all pupils can access the complete geography curriculum. We adopt planning to support the individual needs of each child using pupil passports to inform adaptation. We consider that the immersive nature of our curriculum particularly supports SEND pupils to understand key concepts. 

More Able Children

We ensure that more able pupils can work geographically independently.  We provide all children with opportunities for deeper learning e.g., via QR codes activities, pupils can continue their learning outside of lesson time.

Impact

The impact of our Geography curriculum is measured in a variety of ways: questioning during lesson time, marking children’s written work, listening to child-led discussion, interviewing pupils across the school about their learning, book looks and using images/videos of children’s practical learning.

By the end of the Geography curriculum at Weeton, our children will:

• Have a growing knowledge of the world and their place in it.
• Have a wider vocabulary of geographical terms.
• Aspire to discover more about the world, through reading, travel or the media.
• Know that they can use their voice to express themselves and their opinions.

• Develop their geographical skills, such as, evaluation, creativity, problem-solving and enquiry.

The Impact of our curriculum is constantly monitored by class teachers through formative and summative assessments. Our scheme of work includes guidance for teachers in assessing pupils against learning objectives. Teachers use lesson starters (recaps) to identify gaps in children’s knowledge and subsequently plan opportunities to close any identified gaps.

At the end of each unit of work, assessments are undertaken and retrieval tasks'’ are completed in order for children to demonstrate what they have learned and remembered. At the end of each unit of work, children are assessed based on their performance in lessons and summative assessments are recorded on the school’s internal tracking system as working below the expected standard, working at the expected standard or exceeding the expected standard. Assessments are moderated in staff teams annually.

Standards of teaching and learning in Geography are monitored by the subject leader and headteacher Monitoring may include: pupil interviews, work scrutiny and lesson observations.

We will review and develop the curriculum on an annual basis.