Geography

The geography curriculum at Bank End Primary Academy provides children with a relevant, coherent, progressive knowledge of the world and an ability to find their place in it, explored through the lenses of geographical ‘vertical concepts’:

Location and Place

Where is this place?
What are the human and physical characteristics of this place?
What is the interaction between people and place

Geographical Scale

The location is seen at a local to global scale.
Cause, effects and responses can vary in their scale.
What are the similarities and differences at the different scales – local, regional, national, global.

Making Connections

What are the connections between the human and physical worlds?
How does one event affect another?

It is designed in a way which embeds core disciplinary knowledge, and the ability to approach challenging, geographically-valid questions:

Geographical skills
Fieldwork enquiry
Identify patterns and links
Using examples and key vocabulary

Implementation

Teachers are provided with an additional three planning days per year in addition to their PPA, to plan their curriculum. As part of this planning process, teachers need to plan the following:

A knowledge organiser which outlines knowledge (including vocabulary) all children must master and apply in lessons
A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth concentrating on the geographical skills suited to the age group
Low stakes quizzes which are used regularly to support learners’ ability to retrieve and recall knowledge and increase space in the working memory
Challenge questions for pupils to apply their learning in a philosophical/open manner
Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience

Appropriate curriculum themed home learning tasks which children complete with adults at home

Impact

Our Geography Curriculum is high quality, well thought out and is planned to demonstrate progression. If children are keeping up with the curriculum, they are deemed to be making good or better progress. In addition, we measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

A reflection on standards achieved against the planned outcomes
A celebration of learning for each term which demonstrates progression across the school
Tracking of gains in each quiz;
Pupil discussions about their learning;

Our geography curriculum is also planned in a way which promotes the cultural capital of all our children. We enhance our curriculum especially for the most disadvantaged by organising fieldwork opportunities, guest speakers and keeping up to date with current local and worldwide events that happen at the current time.