Geography

At Bannerman Road, our geography curriculum is designed to equip pupils with deep geographical knowledge about their immediate surroundings and the wider world. We want pupils to start by being inspired by the familiar around them and become curious about the unknown wider world. All our geography enquiries encourage pupils to ask questions about their world and to explore and appreciate other places and cultures across our planet.

Geography starts in Early Years, where pupils learn about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. Pupils talk about the features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. They use a variety of physical resources to engage in open ended activities based on their own interests. The high-quality provision that underpins our Early Years setting allows great opportunities for the children to develop their knowledge and understanding of the World around them.

Our geography curriculum for Years 1-6 is delivered through focused blocks which each have a progression of substantive and disciplinary knowledge. Pupils are immersed in the language and learn to communicate in different ways by being taught important vocabulary for each unit. Pupils are encouraged to communicate their learning in different ways; we aim to enrich their oracy skills using carefully sequenced sentence stems as well as aiming for the outcome of each enquiry to be a vehicle to express learning in a variety of ways, including oral presentations.

Our curriculum is underpinned by carefully sequenced progressions of substantive geographical knowledge within the three main strands of the National Curriculum:

• Locational Knowledge
• Place Knowledge
• Human and Physical Geography

We have made careful choices within these strands to ensure areas, regions and locations studied are relevant to our pupils. We want them to be proud of their local environment, area and city and to then explore further on a global scale to their country and the wider world. We have also carefully sequenced this knowledge so that key foundational knowledge is taught prior to areas covered in other subject areas e.g. teaching the location of London and Rome before learning about the Great Fire of London and the Romans in History. The key knowledge we teach is challenging and we aim to develop our pupils’ resilience with their learning by enabling them to practise through carefully planned retrieval activities – Sticky Knowledge - to ensure knowledge is stored and activated in the long-term memory.

As well as gaining key knowledge about the world and its inhabitants, pupils learn the disciplinary skills of working geographically. They use map skills to find out where different features are located and use a range of sources of geographical information to make comparisons between countries and landscapes. As pupils engage in fieldwork in a variety of ways, both on and off the school site, they and learn how to collect, organise and analyse data with progressively more complex skill and discernment.

Our intention is for all our pupils to see themselves as geographers and recognise their place in the world. Our aim is that they can embrace the differences in the world around them and use their knowledge to stand up for everyone’s rights. We want our pupils to leave Bannerman Road having gained deep geographical knowledge and practical, geographical skills that they can use throughout the rest of their lives.