INTENT:

At Beacon Hill the Geography curriculum is knowledge rich. This means the knowledge children will gain has been carefully specified, ordered coherently and builds over time. As children work through our geography curriculum they will know more, understand more about the world around them. A good geographical understanding relies on firm foundations of knowledge and skills. The skills our curriculum develops, like the knowledge, are specified, ordered coherently and progress over time. This curriculum structure helps pupils to deepen their understanding of physical and human geographical processes, fostering curiosity and fascination for the world we live in.

IMPLEMENTATION:

Each phase of our geography curriculum contains a ‘Spatial Sense’ unit that explicitly teaches geographical skills which will then be used in context throughout the rest of the phase as children apply those skills to learn more about people, places and the environment. The spatial sense units build on prior knowledge before moving children on as the level of challenges increases from year to year.

As children work through the curriculum they will know more and understand more about their local area, the UK, Europe and the World. This rigorous approach, develops geographical knowledge and understanding in a way that builds on children’s prior knowledge, allowing them to make meaningful connections and gain an understanding of how our world is connected.
Conceptual understanding is at the heart of our curriculum. Children will learn about key geographical concepts such as place, space, the environment and interconnection. Over time, working through an essential process of elaboration, children will add to their conceptual understanding with many examples of geographical knowledge in context. Children will become more skilled at answering questions such as; What is it like to live in this place? What are the challenges of this environment? How have people changed this landscape over time? Children will gain an understanding of what geographers do, what they look for and what they may say about a place. They will discover explorers such as Ibn Battuta, Roald Amundsen and Captain James Cook. They will look at the migration of both animals and people, studying the impact migration and colonialism had on places such as Australia and New Zealand.

IMPACT:

Our geography curriculum equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people and environments. Through arming children with powerful knowledge about the world around them they develop a love for the subject of geography, and also recognise their own role in becoming a responsible global citizen.