Our Lady of the Rosary

Geography

At Our Lady of the Rosary School, our vision is to transform the lives of our pupils within a Catholic environment by nurturing the wellbeing of each child, promoting the highest academic achievement and instilling a lifelong love of learning. We aim to fulfil our school strap line ‘Faith, Love, Learning’ by igniting a thirst for knowledge and a desire to achieve through an engaging and creative curriculum that promotes the highest academic achievements and prepares our pupils to be successful in their adult life.

Our Vision…

Here at Our Lady of the Rosary the teaching of Geography aids pupils in developing a secure understanding of the world around them. A thought-provoking enquiry based curriculum hooks the pupils’ interest in the world around them and pupils will become confident in making connections within their learning by becoming familiar with the strands that run throughout our Geography curriculum. 

As a school, we share and celebrate our geography work with pride and express that every child is an Our Lady of the Rosary Geographer.

Intent

Our spiral curriculum, allows the pupils to build on and develop their knowledge and skills throughout their time at Our Lady of the Rosary.  There are six strands that run throughout our Geography curriculum are: Mapping, Natural Environments, Settlements, Trade, Climate/ Weather and Local area.  Across the year, the pupils will study each of the six strands within the planned units of work at least once. 

Through a pupil’s Geography journey, they will also develop their understanding of being a Global Citizen. They will examine how they can make a positive impact on the world while exploring their natural environment, climate and their local environment. Pupils will also develop their knowledge of countries and continents and their location on a map. As a result, our pupils are exposed to a range of different cultures and explore ways of life across the globe, in each and every continent, making comparisons as they go.  Pupils will become confident with mapping skills and will become familiar with the world map as a whole. Throughout the curriculum, pupils deepen their understanding of settlements and trade as well as climate and weather.

Fieldwork is interwoven throughout a pupil’s journey at Our Lady of the Rosary. Pupil take part in at least one field trip each academic year. Fieldwork ranges from using the school grounds and local area to studying rivers, beaches and biomes. Each fieldwork opportunity has a specific learning focus, and pupils will have the opportunity to collect, analyse and present data. Over the course of their time at Our Lady of the Rosary, each pupil will have gained fieldwork experiences linking to each of the curriculum strands.  

Substantive knowledge is developed during each topic, giving the pupils the opportunity to learn and become confident with a range of geographical terms, including developing their locational knowledge of places and physical processes. Retrieval tasks are used to embed the knowledge that pupils need to know, enabling them to have confidence when recalling key information. This is part of our commitment for the pupils to ‘know more and remember more’.  They will also develop their disciplinary knowledge throughout the Geography curriculum, learning how to work like a geographer, by developing their map work, geographical enquiry and fieldwork skills. Disciplinary knowledge is interwoven throughout a pupils’ Geography journey here at Our Lady of the Rosary, giving each child essential skills for life.

EYFS

The Early Learning Goal ‘Understanding the World’ best fits the children’s knowledge and understand of Geography. Children are guided to make sense of their physical world and community through a range of personal experiences.

Key Stage 1

Pupils will develop knowledge about the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They will understand basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness. This will be achieved through locational and place knowledge, Human and physical geography, Geographical skills and fieldwork.

Key Stage 2

Pupils will extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom and Europe, North and South America. This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features. They will develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge. This will be achieved through locational and place knowledge, Human and physical geography, Geographical skills and fieldwork.

Implementation

  • Geography is taught over 6 weeks covering national curriculum objectives within a unit.  
  • All lessons build on prior learning, allowing pupils to make meaningful connections within and across the subject areas, enabling them to remember more over time. This will also develop the depth of a pupil’s understanding and ensures a clear progression of skills.
  • At the start of each Unit of Work, pupils will review previous learning and will have the opportunity to share what they already know.
  • Each Geography lesson begins with an enquiry question. 
  • Any subject specific vocabulary is shared with the pupils each lesson and definitions are given to help build pupil’s geographical vocabulary.
  • Substantive knowledge is taught through individual lessons, the disciplinary knowledge and concepts develop as the unit progresses.  
  • Every year group will build upon the learning from the previous year therefore developing depth of understanding and progression of skills.
  • Throughout lessons, pupils will have opportunities to use and interpret a wide range of geographical information, including maps, atlases, diagrams, globes and aerial photographs.
  • Each year group undertakes a fieldwork trip each year, using our school grounds, local area and beyond. Pupils will collect, analyse and present a range of data, gathered during these experiences (observations, surveys, investigations and field sketches), to deepen understanding of geographical processes.
  • Retrieval is done at the start of each lesson to give pupils the opportunity to retrieve geographical knowledge from their long-term memory.  In order to support pupils in their ability to ‘know more and remember more’ there are regular opportunities to review the learning taken place in previous topics as well as previous lessons.
  • Pupils are assessed against a series of endpoints, showing whether they have accurately understood and retained key knowledge.
  • Consideration is given to how greater depth will be taught, learnt and demonstrated within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported in line with the school’s commitment to inclusion.
  • Evidence of pupil work is recorded in pupils Geography book and the Enquiry question is answered at the end of each unity in pupils’ knowledge portfolio.
  • Outcomes of work are regularly monitored to ensure that they reflect a sound understanding of the key identified knowledge.
  • Assessment is informed by observations during lessons, verbal feedback, pupil voice and work scrutiny.
  • Summative judgements (Working Towards/Working At/Working Above age-related Expectations) are recorded for Geography at the end of each term (KS1 and KS2).
  • An end of year overall summative judgement is made in end of year reports for all KS1 and KS2 pupils (EYFS profile assessment - ELG Understanding the World).  
  • Effective use of educational visits and visitors are planned to enrich and provide first-hand learning experiences for pupils.
  • Cross-curricular links are planned for and allow children to deepen their understanding across the curriculum, including the use of history, mathematics and science. 

Impact

Pupils have developed the geographical knowledge and skills to help them explore, navigate and understand the world around them and their place in it. They will demonstrate a quick recall of facts and procedures. This includes the recollection of the knowledge from each unit of work. Pupils will have the ability to make connections in geography lessons and develop their understanding of how places are interconnected.

Pupils will understand the impact that they have on the planet and be able to articulate how important it is to live sustainably. They will have a secure understanding of Geography and the importance and valuable contributions that they can make as informed global citizens which will impact and shape their future. This will ignite a desire to travel and explore our diverse world, to protect and secure this for future generations.

We have high aspirations for all pupils, which will see them through to further study, work and be successful in their adult life.

Geography overview 2024