Geography
The Intent, Implementation and Impact of Geography at Seascale Primary School
Intent
Seascale School is driven by the children’s curiosity to deepen their understanding of the world around them both locally and globally. At Seascale School our intent is to inspire children’s natural curiosity and to provide children with a sense of belonging and an understanding of how their actions affect the world around us. Seascale School aims to ensure all opportunities and experience develop skills including observing places, measuring and recording data and to analyse and present their findings so that all children are engaged and inspired by our present world.
Our intent through use of the Kapow scheme is to encourage:
- A strong focus on developing both geographical skills and knowledge.
- Critical thinking, with the ability to ask perceptive questions and explain and analyse evidence.
- The development of fieldwork skills across each year group.
- A deep interest and knowledge of pupils’ locality and how it differs from other areas of the world.
- A growing understanding of geographical terms and vocabulary.
Implementation
In EYFS, children develop their compassion for the environment and love for the world in preparation for their Key Stage 1 and 2 learning journey. Through the 'Understanding the World' specific area in the Early Years Foundation Stage Framework, children are encouraged to question aspects of their familiar world as well as to show care and concern for their immediate environment and further afield which we enhance with visits to the local area and tending to our school garden.
The National curriculum organises the Geography attainment targets under four subheadings or strands:
- Locational knowledge
- Place knowledge
- Human and physical geography
- Geographical skills and fieldwork
Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme has a clear progression of skills and knowledge within these four strands across each year group. The Progression of skills and knowledge document from Kapow shows the skills taught within each year group and how these develop to ensure that attainment targets are securely met by the end of each key stage. The National curriculum mapping document shows which of our units cover each of the National curriculum attainment targets as well as each of the four strands.
The Kapow Primary scheme is a spiral curriculum, with essential knowledge and skills revisited with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Locational knowledge, in particular, will be reviewed in each unit to coincide with the belief that this will consolidate children’s understanding of key concepts, such as scale and place, in Geography.
The enquiry questions form the basis for the Kapow units, meaning that pupils gain a solid understanding of geographical knowledge and skills by applying them to answer enquiry questions. They have been designed to be open-ended with no preconceived answers and therefore they are genuinely purposeful and engage pupils in generating a real change. In attempting to answer them, children learn how to collect, interpret and present data using geographical methodologies and make informed decisions by applying their geographical knowledge.
Each unit contains elements of geographical skills and fieldwork to ensure that fieldwork skills are practised as often as possible. Kapow Primary units follow an enquiry cycle that maps out the fieldwork process of question, observe, measure, record, and present, to reflect the elements mentioned in the National curriculum.
This ensures children will learn how to decide on an area of enquiry, plan to measure data using a range of methods, capture the data and present it to a range of appropriate stakeholders in various formats.
Fieldwork includes smaller opportunities on the school grounds to larger-scale visits to investigate physical and human features. Developing fieldwork skills within the school environment and revisiting them in multiple units enables pupils to consolidate their understanding of various methods. It also gives children the confidence to evaluate methodologies without always having to leave the school grounds and do so within the confines of a familiar place. This makes fieldwork regular and accessible while giving children a thorough understanding of their locality, providing a solid foundation when comparing it with other places.
Lessons incorporate various teaching strategies from independent tasks to paired and group work, including practical hands-on, computer-based and collaborative tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. Differentiated guidance is available for every lesson to ensure that all pupils can access learning, and opportunities to stretch pupils’ learning are available when required.
Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff to deliver a highly effective and robust
Geography curriculum. Each unit of lessons includes multiple teacher videos to develop subject knowledge and support CPD. We want to ensure that staff feel supported to deliver lessons of a high standard that ensure pupil progression.
Geography at Seascale school is delivered half termly and alongside regular opportunities for fieldwork in school and taking advantage of our stunning locality, children are also engaged in their learning through experiential opportunities such as educational visits or visitors, resource boxes and also enjoy using technology, when relevant, to enable and enhance their learning.
Please see our overview below
Impact
An enquiry-based approach to learning will allow teachers to assess children against the National curriculum expectations for Geography. The impact of Kapow
Primary’s scheme can be constantly monitored through both formative and summative assessment opportunities. We use the assessment framework produced by Kapow to effectively assess children following a unit of work.
After following Kapow Primary Geography, the children of Seascale School will have an understanding of the wider world and local area. They are equipped with geographical skills and knowledge, which will enable them to progress through their future Geographical learning journey. They will develop the ability to critically question to ensure for a sustainable future and deepen their understanding of the interconnection between the human and physical. All the while, building on their curiosity and love for learning.
At Seascale School we think Geography is ...
*Please note that due to class structure, the coverage of these units may be in different year groups.