Geography Intent

At Rosewood we believe that geography provides children with the opportunity to ask questions about the world they live in and develop their understanding of our place in the world. We aim to ensure provide children with a broad and balanced geography curriculum, exposing them to different viewpoints and sources to enable children to form their own views of the world they live in. Our curriculum is broad, which allows children to discover a range of places and develop a varied geographical understanding. The curriculum also has depth, which allows the children to think like a geographer and revisit themes throughout their primary career to build on skills and ideas. We aim to inspire a fascination of awe and wonder as we expose children to all different aspects of the Earth. Our aim is to create students who are curious about the world around them and inspired to find out more.

Geography starts right from Nursery at Rosewood, with children exploring their space and developing their understanding of the world. Throughout their time at Rosewood key skills and knowledge are continually built on to help create curious, globally aware citizens. Geography is a driver subject at Rosewood – this means that children are exposed to their geography learning through a variety of mediums throughout the topic, including class novels, enrichment opportunities and cross-curricular writing.

We have worked closely with geography specialists to design a geography curriculum which creates a coherently planned sequence of lessons ensuring that children are progressively taught the knowledge, skills and concepts required by the National Curriculum with a strong focus on fieldwork.

The Four Strands of the National Curriculum

We categorise the four main strands in the National Curriculum for Geography as procedural knowledge (Geography skills and fieldwork), declarative knowledge (locational knowledge, human and physical Geography, and place knowledge) and disciplinary knowledge (how to ‘be’ a geographer through asking and investigating geographical questions, evaluating and debating geographical processes).

Our intention is to create a 'snowball' effect starting in EYFS; learning is cumulative and our children revisit these key concepts repeatedly giving structure and meaning to history content and facts, building their 'snowball' of knowledge and skill acquisition.   We recognise that progress in history is developing knowledge and is not memorising disconnected facts.  We want our children to build richer ideas and schema about the past and the
discipline of history.

Our intention is to allow children to build on prior learning in each strand of the National Curriculum. In each year, children will have opportunity to progress their skills in: human and physical geography, place knowledge, locational knowledge, mapping (using and devising) and fieldwork. Key vocabulary is consolidated and built upon as they progress from EYFS to Year 6. There are opportunities for children to build a more in depth understanding of place by revisiting the same place through different units throughout their learning journey.

Implementation

Geography at Rosewood is taught on a termly basis as a discrete subject area so that children achieve depth in their learning. They key knowledge and skills that children acquire and develop throughout each block have been mapped to ensure progression between year groups throughout the school. Our bespoke curriculum has been designed with geography specialists so that teachers make links between previously acquired skills including place, mapping, locational and fieldwork knowledge. Teaching draws attention to important content and terms and frequently revisits these and builds in regular retrieval opportunities . This supports the secure retention that will unlock rapid later recognition of these terms. Each topic incorporates opportunities to 'Think Like Geographers' and apply their substantive and disciplinary skills and knowledge. Fieldwork is just one way in which children can think like geographers. Children in the EYFS start developing their knowledge, skills, and understanding of the world by learning about their local area and immediate vicinity. There is opportunity in each year group for fieldwork skills to be utilised, with an emphasis on progression in the way the children plan, gather and report their findings. Practitioners deliver a fully inclusive curriculum for the varying needs of all learners (including those with SEND), adapting activities where necessary and ensuring an appropriate level of challenge. Where appropriate, we use geographical current media and issues, resources, visitors, workshops and trips to excite and intrigue our children to find out more about the world around them and give them a purpose for their learning. 

Geography Unit Structure:

Geography units have a key question that children will investigate. The key question is split up into further questions which allow opportunity to create an in depth understanding of the topic and build on prior knowledge and skills. An example of a unit of work is shown below. 

Geography Impact

 We use formative assessments to inform learning and ensure that all pupils, including disadvantaged and those with SEND, achieve highly and acquire the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life. Staff use assessment information to inform their short-term planning and address misconceptions. This helps us provide the best possible support for all of our pupils. The end points for each phase have been carefully mapped out and further broken down. This means that the essential knowledge and skills in geography are progressive and build throughout their school journey.​

Rosewood Geography Policy and Curriculum Maps

What does geography look like at Rosewood?

Geography in EYFS

In EYFS, geography involves guiding pupils to make sense of their world, through opportunities to explore, observe and find out about people, places and their environment. They will begin their journey through exploring locational knowledge by creating maps of familiar environments, enabling children to use spatial awareness and problem solving skills. They will also explore what is in our local area, allowing for fieldwork opportunities and considering human and physical features. They will also begin thinking like geographers in collecting data and enquiring about what the weather is like.

They will go on to explore their home and local area, continuing to develop their locational and place knowledge through messy maps, fieldwork opportunities and begin using geographical terminology. They will develop their place knowledge by widening their knowledge of the world and using comparison skills to explore countries near and far. It is Rosewood’s belief that children’s curiosity should be celebrated and so the children are provided with opportunities to collect data about mini-beasts on the school grounds and ask further geographical questions to embed their learning.

Geography in Key Stage One

In Year One, the children will consider what makes their home town great. They will use fieldwork opportunities to explore the human and physical features, use maps and apply locational knowledge and vocabulary. They will think about why Burnley is great and how it has changed over time, acknowledging Burnley’s identity as a cotton mill town. They will then enquire about the United Kingdom, identifying the countries, capital cities and seas surrounding it. They will explore the capital city of England in more depth, considering what it is like to live there in comparison to other parts of UK. They will also consider land use, coastlines and ports in the UK. They will also collect weather data to allow for comparison between Burnley and London, communicating this through pictograms. They will also create maps of our school grounds, considering their favourite place and identifying physical and human features there.

In Year 2, they will explore the world’s continents and oceans and consider significant features of them. This will allow the children to consider what makes our continent of Europe special. There will be opportunities for fieldwork where the children will begin to use and construct maps with keys. They will then explore hot and cold places of the world, exploring what it would be like to live on the equator in comparison to the poles of the Earth. As part of being geographers, the children will be challenged with finding a way in which to improve our school grounds. They will expand upon their place knowledge by studying Alice Springs, exploring what it is like to live there and the key human and physical features there, going on to compare Alice Springs with their home town of Burnley.

Geography in Lower Key Stage Two

In Year Three, the children are provided opportunity to expand upon their locational geography and explore lines of latitude and deepen their knowledge and understanding of place through studying what it is like to live near the Tropic of Capricorn through revisiting their knowledge of Alice Springs. They will also enquire whether their local area has a litter problem, collecting data and communicating their findings appropriately. They will go on to find out what volcanoes and earthquakes are, expanding on locational knowledge to identify them on maps and use enquiry skills to explore why they appear there. They will then go on to consider what it is like to live in the Lake District, identifying key human and physical features and the effect tourism has there. They will develop their knowledge of map work by using 4 figure grid-references and through the introduction of contour lines.

In Year Four, children will develop their knowledge of place by exploring Ile-de-France, considering major countries, cities, environmental regions and key human and features. They will go on to further consider France and what it is like to live there before examining Ile-de-France in more detail. They will explore the land use their and the impact of tourism. They will use this knowledge to revisit their knowledge of the Lake District from Year Three and draw comparisons. They will go on to consider biomes across the world, with particular focus on desert biomes. This will allow them to deepen their place knowledge of Alice Springs. They will also enquire about where water goes. This will provide opportunity for children to examine the importance of rivers and major rivers in the UK and the world. They will also further enrich their knowledge of rivers through fieldwork opportunities and the study of a local river.

Geography in Upper Key Stage Two

In Year Five, the children will look through the history of the UK and how the land use has changed over time. They will develop their Locational Knowledge by naming and locating counties and cities of the United Kingdom, geographical regions and there identifying human and physical characteristics, key topographical features, (including coasts and rivers),and land-use patterns; and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time.  The children will look at grid references and OS maps to build their knowledge of the United Kingdom and the wider world. To support them with their work the children will use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate counties and describe features studied. After this the children will use field work to look at how transport and travel affect their local area. In the Spring term, the children will look into fair trade with a special focus on how food is farmed and transported. They will also consider the effects importing and exporting food is having on climate change. In the Summer term, the children will explore the fascinating world of the Rain forest. They will take a look into South America and where it is located. They will consider why the Amazon tropic rainforest biome is special. Finally, they will look into the devastation caused by deforestation and examine the reasons for this happening

 In Year Six, the children will develop their Locational Knowledge by identifying the position and significance of the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones. They will use maps ,atlases, globes, digital/computer maps and satellite images to locate and place countries of the world, with a special focus on North America. Whilst looking into North America the children will concentrate on their environmental regions, key physical and human characteristics, countries, and major cities. Following on from this the children will take a step into the world of energy, learning how the land is used to create energy. They will use their human geography knowledge to support them, whilst looking into statistics and how Norway supports the UK. Finally, the children will take a look into what the future has in store for our world. They will look into global problems such as climate change and the steps humans can take to help. They will enrich their knowledge and understanding by completing field work within the local area and considering the issues encountered by people visiting Burnley.

School Council

School Council were out in the community tree planting with Burnley Council’s ‘Green Spaces.’ We were collected on a minibus and went to Barclay Hills near Rossendale Road. We met Neil who showed us how to use a spade to make a ‘T’ cut in the ground, then fold back the earth before putting the roots of a sapling in and pressing the soil around it. Other tree saplings needed a bigger hole making so that really tested our muscles! A muddy time was had by all and we planted about 30 trees. Well done School Council for helping the environment!

YES-Fest

Some of our children had the exciting opportunity to take part in YES-Fest (Youth Eco Summit Festival). This was a two day event in which the children from multiple schools across the country took part in activities to be part of the beautiful countryside of Pendle and consider the effects of global warming on our world. They event immersed the children in nature and created such a connection with the planet that they were desperate to do something about the climate emergency. 

Outdoor Learning Club

Outdoor Learning Club have spent time in our forest school and considered how to be respectful to our environment. They made tree spirits to protect our forest school area.

Thinking like a geographer

Here are some links to some useful websites that you might want to use to start thinking like a geographer - asking and answering some questions about our world.