Geography AT DOWNSHALL KEY STAGE 1 AND 2
Subject leader: Ms Shafi
Introduction
Downshall Primary School follow the national curriculum and adapt the planning and implementation to achieve the needs of the relevant cohort each year.
Using the four cornerstones pedagogy, first quality teaching ensures that the key skills and knowledge are taught memorably to enable learning to be transferred to long term memory. We have designed our Geography curriculum to inspire our pupils with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people, which is embedded and built on throughout their experiences. Our pupils are also taught knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, as well as being provided opportunities that move beyond the school experience, through fieldwork. Throughout pupils’ learning, opportunities are provided to make links between prior and new knowledge, thus their growing knowledge about the world leads to helping them to deepen their understanding. Our curriculum is designed to engage our pupils and enable and inspire them to become: inquisitive, resilient, independent, challenging thinkers; and active global citizens with the confidence to use, and build on, their cultural capital, learning and experiences - both inside and outside of the classroom.
Subject Drivers
The subject drivers are what underpin the curriculum that we provide for our pupils and these are embedded within the subjects that we teach. These 'Subject Drivers' are fundamental to our whole school curriculum and all subjects are planned with these in mind.
The Geography subject drivers for pupils are:
- Develop knowledge of globally significant places.
- Understand the impact of humans on the planet.
National Curriculum
| Topics covered EYFS | Topics Covered KS1 | Topics covered LKS2 | Topics covered UKS2 |
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QUOTES FROM PUPIL Ambassadors
“I enjoy geography because I get to investigate new parts of the world I don’t know about. ‘ - Muhammad-Ibrahim 4AS.
“In geography I really enjoyed learning about time zones, flags, farming and more about the world. “ - Daniel 5SH
“I think Geography is a nice subject because it teaches you about other people and how places around the world are different from the UK.” - Delaksha 6A
Enrichments
We have range of exciting trips every year that links to our geography learning. These include:
- Visit to the seaside as part of the Coastlines project.
- Trip to River Thames which is linked to the project ‘Misty Mountain, Winding Rivers.
- Exploring the famous landmarks in London as part of the project ‘Bright Lights, Big City.’
Pupils are also given the opportunity to carry out a range of fieldwork and human and physical features, weather patterns and the environment within the school and local area.
An excellent example of a successful enrichment is the Geography Bee competition against other local schools. Pupils taking part in the competition will be learning lots of geography facts to deepen their understanding of the world. They will also take part in a quiz and compete in a series of rounds to see which school will be the ultimate geography champions!
links to Helpful Websites
Lots of useful resources about the world around us and different countries:
National Geographic Kids - www.natgeokids.com
Royal Geographical Society - www.rgs.org
Key Stage 1 BBC Bitesize - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zcdqxnb
Key Stage 2 BBC Bitesize - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zbkw2hv
Here is a website with lots of different Geography games to play. There are some tricky quizzes too!
World Geography Games - https://world-geography-games.com/
Examples of Learning
Reception fieldwork study linked to transport in the local area:
Year 2 trip to the seaside:
Locating rivers in the world – Year 4:
Year 5 fieldwork study on allotments in our school area:
Year 6 investigating the rate at which icebergs melt and the impact this has on our planet:
