Our Intent
Studying geography develops children’s knowledge and understanding of what is around them in the local area, in Manchester, in Britain and globally. They will develop, through studies on different scales, a sense of both space and place.
Children in Barlow Hall will know how places, processes, people and cultures are connected, how they are similar and how they are different. This will support an understanding and knowledge in the next stages of their education and throughout their lives.
Geography provides Barlow Hall children with knowledge and vocabulary to describe the features of the environment and the processes that shape it. Children will understand the spatial layout and organisation of the world and recognise patterns and relationships in a wide range of locations and environments. They will understand how human and physical aspects of the world are connected and how they can have an impact on one another. They will use a wide range of sources and experiences to learn about the geography of our planet. The development of map work and fieldwork skills will be integral to their understanding. Children at Barlow Hall will gain an understanding of the importance of looking after our planet and the dangers that can arise from not doing so.
By the end of primary school, Barlow Hall children will know and understand:
Physical geography: weather patterns and climates, climate zones, vegetation zones, biomes, natural disasters,river features, coastal features and the water cycle.
Human Geography: types of settlement and economic activity, distribution of natural resources and trade.
Environmental geography: natural resources around the world and how people can harm or protect the environment.
Locational knowledge: general geographical knowledge and vocabulary regarding position and significance (including time zones, equator, latitude, longitude, continents and oceans).
Place knowledge: local studies, UK regional studies, European and non-European studies – including a study of regions on each of the continents.
Skills: Enquiry, mapping (including symbols and key use), compass directions, grid references, fieldwork and the development of geographical vocabulary.
Our Implementation
The geography curriculum has been designed to ensure that units, lessons and tasks deliver our curriculum intention. Our curriculum is split into three strands:
-Our Home (focusing on the geography of our local area and the United Kingdom)
-Our World (focusing on understanding space and place of the continents on Earth)
-Our Planet (focusing on environmental issues and physical processes of our planet
Our geography curriculum has our thinking concepts: Analyse and Interpret; Continuity and Change;, Similarities and Differences; Perspectives; Inter-Relationships and Cause and Effect at its core.
Children at Barlow Hall study geography every term. Our curriculum planning outlines the intended essential knowledge and associated thinking concepts for each geography unit taught across the school. The design and sequencing of our curriculum aims to build meaningful schemata for our children by creating connections and links within and across year groups, revisiting key concepts and progressively building upon previously acquired knowledge and skills within the subject.
Within geography units, lessons and tasks build upon one another to develop learning that is meaningful and purposeful. Retrieval is embedded in our planning and delivery to enable children to know and remember more in geography.
Our Impact
We want to foster an enjoyment and interest in geography at Barlow Hall and this has come across strongly in pupil voice feedback. The knowledge and skills the children develop and the progress they make is evidenced in the depth and detail of pupil discussion during pupil voice activities and is supported in the evidence gained in book scrutinies carried out across the year.
By the end of Key Stage 2, children have a good grasp of the locational knowledge of key aspects of our world and are able to talk about a wide range of human and physical features, processes and issues on our planet. They are able to use a wide range of sources to compare, contrast, analyse and infer about life in different places and have a sound understanding of the geography of their own surroundings. They have developed key geographical skills such as enquiry, collecting and presenting data and map skills that are essential for future learning.
