Alsager Highfields Geography
Intent
At Alsager Highfields, we aim to inspire in every child a curiosity and fascination about the world and the people who live within it. We want our children to develop a secure understanding of their place in the world, beginning with their immediate surroundings and local area before progressively widening their geographical knowledge to the United Kingdom and the wider world.
Our Geography curriculum is ambitious for all pupils. It is designed to develop both substantive geographical knowledge – what pupils know about places, environments and geographical processes – and disciplinary knowledge – the skills and understanding pupils need to investigate geographical questions and think increasingly like geographers.
Our curriculum develops four interconnected areas of geographical knowledge:
- locational knowledge;
- place knowledge;
- human and physical geography;
- geographical skills and fieldwork.
Through these areas, pupils encounter and revisit important geographical concepts including place, space, scale, interdependence, physical and human processes, environmental impact, sustainable development, and cultural awareness and diversity. This enables children to make increasingly sophisticated connections between places, people, environments and processes as they move through the school.
We want our children to understand that Geography is not simply about knowing where places are. It is about understanding why places are as they are, how they are connected, how they change and the impact people and natural processes have upon them.
Our curriculum therefore provides opportunities for children to investigate their own locality alongside contrasting places around the world. This allows pupils to appreciate both the diversity and interconnectedness of the world and to develop an informed understanding of important issues including sustainability and human impact on the environment.
From the earliest stages, children are also taught the vocabulary needed to communicate geographically. Subject-specific vocabulary has been carefully mapped from Year 1 to Year 6 so that pupils encounter increasingly precise geographical language across locational and place knowledge, human and physical geography, and geographical skills and fieldwork.
Ultimately, our aim is for children to leave Alsager Highfields as curious, knowledgeable and responsible young geographers who can ask meaningful questions about the world, interpret geographical information, undertake geographical enquiries and understand their own role within an interconnected and changing planet.
Implementation
At Alsager Highfields, Geography is taught through a carefully sequenced curriculum using Grammarsaurus Geography. The curriculum has been designed to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum while ensuring that knowledge, vocabulary and geographical skills develop progressively from EYFS to Year 6.
The National Curriculum identifies the importance of pupils developing contextual knowledge of significant places, understanding the processes that create key human and physical features, and becoming competent in geographical skills. These include collecting and analysing fieldwork data, interpreting maps, diagrams, globes and aerial photographs, and communicating geographical information in different ways. These principles underpin our curriculum.
Building geographical knowledge
Learning is deliberately sequenced so that new knowledge builds upon what pupils have previously learned. Key geographical concepts are revisited in increasingly complex contexts, allowing children to strengthen their existing understanding while making connections with new places and processes.
Children's geographical understanding begins in EYFS through Understanding the World, where they explore the natural world around them, observe plants and animals, compare their environment with contrasting environments and begin to understand natural processes such as seasonal change.
In Key Stage 1, pupils develop knowledge of the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They learn about continents and oceans, countries and capital cities of the UK, weather and climate, and human and physical features. They begin to compare places and use maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs and simple compass directions. First-hand observation and fieldwork are integral to developing their understanding of their school and local environment.
As children progress into Key Stage 2, the geographical scale and complexity of their learning increases. Children develop increasingly detailed knowledge of the UK, Europe and the wider world while exploring physical and human processes and the relationships between them. Their understanding moves beyond identifying geographical features towards explaining patterns, connections, processes and change.
For example, by Year 3 pupils investigate the geographical characteristics of the United Kingdom and their region, including counties, settlements, land use, mountains and rivers. They also begin to use four-figure grid references, symbols, keys, maps and atlases with increasing independence.
Geographical enquiry and fieldwork
Fieldwork is an essential part of Geography at Alsager Highfields. Wherever appropriate, children learn geography through first-hand investigation of their school grounds and local area.
Fieldwork is progressive rather than an isolated experience. Younger pupils begin by observing their surroundings, following routes, using directional language and collecting simple data. For example, Year 1 pupils undertake fieldwork within their local environment, collecting and recording information about human and physical features and presenting their findings.
As pupils progress, they increasingly plan geographical enquiries, select appropriate methods of data collection, use mapping and digital tools, present information in different forms, analyse patterns and evaluate their findings. The curriculum therefore enables pupils to move from observing and recording towards questioning, analysing, explaining and evaluating.
Maps and geographical skills
Map work is embedded throughout our curriculum.
Children progressively develop their ability to use:
- maps, atlases and globes;
- aerial photographs and satellite imagery;
- compass directions;
- symbols and keys;
- sketch maps;
- grid references;
- scale;
- Ordnance Survey maps;
- digital mapping;
- geographical data.
These skills are revisited in increasingly challenging contexts so that children become confident and independent users of geographical information.
Vocabulary
We recognise that a secure understanding of geographical vocabulary is essential if children are to think, speak and write successfully as geographers.
Vocabulary is therefore explicitly taught and progressively sequenced throughout our curriculum. Children move from foundational terms such as country, continent, settlement, route and human and physical features towards increasingly specialised language associated with physical processes, economic activity, sustainability and geographical enquiry.
Geographical vocabulary is modelled accurately by adults, revisited regularly and used by children when discussing, explaining and recording their geographical understanding.
Making connections
Our Geography curriculum is designed so that knowledge does not sit within isolated units. Teachers make explicit links to previous learning, enabling pupils to retrieve and apply what they already know when encountering new geographical contexts.
This helps children build increasingly connected geographical understanding. They learn, for example, that climate influences vegetation and biomes; physical geography can influence settlement and land use; economic activity connects places; and human decisions can have environmental consequences.
Environmental responsibility and sustainability are developed meaningfully through the curriculum rather than taught as standalone ideas. Children consider environmental impact and sustainable development and learn that decisions made by individuals and communities can affect places and environments. In Year 3, for example, pupils investigate how land use affects bees and consider how their school locality could become more environmentally friendly.
Impact
The impact of our Geography curriculum is seen in children who are increasingly knowledgeable, curious and confident geographers.
By the time pupils leave Alsager Highfields, we expect them to have developed a secure and connected body of geographical knowledge and to be able to draw upon previous learning when investigating new places, processes and geographical questions.
Children will be able to:
- demonstrate increasingly secure knowledge of significant places in the UK and wider world;
- use geographical vocabulary accurately and confidently;
- identify and explain important human and physical geographical processes;
- recognise relationships and interdependence between people, places and environments;
- compare places at different scales and explain geographical similarities and differences;
- confidently interpret maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs and other geographical sources;
- use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and investigate geographical questions;
- collect, present, analyse and evaluate geographical information;
- ask increasingly sophisticated geographical questions and use evidence to reach conclusions;
- understand environmental challenges and the importance of sustainable development.
Assessment is ongoing and informs teaching. Teachers use questioning, discussion, retrieval opportunities, children's written and practical work, mapping activities and fieldwork outcomes to identify what pupils know, remember and can do. This enables teachers to identify misconceptions and gaps and ensure that subsequent teaching builds securely upon prior learning.
Most importantly, we want our pupils to leave primary school seeing Geography as a living, relevant subject. They should recognise that the knowledge and skills they have developed help them understand their local area, the wider world and some of the significant environmental and human challenges that will shape their future.