Geography

At Robert Bakewell, we believe that Geography helps children understand their place in the world and develop curiosity about the diverse environments, people and places that exist both locally and globally. Through high-quality geography teaching, we aim to inspire pupils to be inquisitive, thoughtful and reflective about the world around them.

We use the Kapow Primary Geography scheme to support and sequence our curriculum, ensuring full coverage of the National Curriculum and clear progression of skills and knowledge across all year groups.

Developing Young Geographers

Our Geography curriculum is carefully planned across a two-year rolling cycle, ensuring that children experience a broad and balanced coverage of knowledge and skills over time, including mixed-age classes.

Through this curriculum, children are encouraged to:

·         Develop a strong sense of place, from their local area to the wider world.

·         Confidently talk about where they live in relation to other locations.

• Understand key physical and human geographical features.

• Explore natural events and begin to understand how and why they occur.

• Ask questions about the world and the impact of human activity.

• Recognise both positive and negative impacts humans have on the environment.

Children are encouraged to be curious and inquisitive, developing a sense of wonder about the world and an understanding of how it changes over time. Through engaging lessons, pupils learn to appreciate the diversity of places and people and to think critically about global issues.

Planning

Geography is taught weekly during alternating half terms with History, following a carefully sequenced, progressive curriculum. Each unit is driven by a key enquiry question and structured through clear lines of enquiry.

The curriculum is built around the National Curriculum strands:

• Locational knowledge

• Place knowledge

• Human and physical geography

• Geographical skills and fieldwork

Bringing Geography to Life

We aim to spark a love of Geography by providing Learning is enriched through fieldwork opportunities, both within the school grounds and in the local area, as well as workshops, visitors and high-quality texts that support each unit of work. These experiences help children connect learning to the real world and deepen their understanding of both local and global environments, while developing curiosity about the world around them.

Geography in the Early Years

In preparation for Geography in Key Stage 1, children in the Early Years explore “People, Culture and Communities” and “The Natural World” as part of Understanding the World. These Early Learning Goals help children develop awareness of their surroundings, talk about places that are important to them, observe changes in the environment, recognise similarities and differences between locations and begin to understand the wider world.

Supporting Every Learner

Geography lessons are carefully adapted to ensure all pupils can access and succeed in the curriculum. Teachers use quality first teaching alongside targeted support to break learning into manageable steps, reducing cognitive load where needed. Additional strategies include dual-coded vocabulary, visual resources, pre-teaching, adult support and a variety of ways for pupils to record and demonstrate their understanding.

Our aim is for every child to leave Robert Bakewell with a secure understanding of the world, a curiosity about different places and environments, and the knowledge and skills to think critically about global and local issues.