Geography 

Intent 

At Flora Gardens, the intention of the geography curriculum is to inspire children’s curiosity and interest to explore the world that we live in and its people, which aims to fuel a love of learning. We intend to equip children with geographical skills to develop their knowledge through studying places, people and natural and human environments. This seeks to deepen the understanding of the Earth’s human and physical forms and processes. Through our teaching, staff and support staff intend to provoke thoughts, questions and to encourage children to discover answers to their own questions through exploration and investigation. This research enables children to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of the world. 

Implementation 

At Flora Gardens all children expand on their skills in local knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork. Across both key stages, children have a range of opportunities to experience geography through practical engaging tasks beyond the classroom.

Lessons often begin with a ‘See Think Wonder’ picture linked to the geographic topic of learning.  This encourages pupils’ vocabulary, listening, retrieval and curiosity.

Our lessons come with regular ‘pop quizzes’ as opportunities for spaced retrieval, as well as end of unit assessments or tasks to give the teacher and adults leading geography confidence in the progression of skills and knowledge and that outcomes have been met.  

Our geography topics include:

A cycle of lessons for each subject, which carefully plans for progression and depth concentrating on the geographical skills suited to the age group.   

• A quiz or practice opportunity which supports learners’ ability to make links, embed key facts in long term memory and increase space in the working memory.    
• Challenge questions or tasks where pupils may select their level of challenge to encourage metacognition.
• Trips and visiting experts who will enhance the learning experience.    
• Appropriate curriculum themed home learning tasks which children complete with adults at home.
• Regular opportunities to learn and apply learning about Climate Change.  

Impact

The Flora Gardens Geography Curriculum is engaging, 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 pupil discussions about their learning using questionnaires and SIMs data. 
• Geography Assessments that highlight children who are working below, at and above. 

How Parents Can Help

When out and about in your local area, you can help your child geographically by chatting about local physical features, attractions and activities. You might even like to develop this idea by asking them to provide a tourist guide for their local area for visiting relatives.

On a journey, you can share the road map or map phone app with your son or daughter so they can follow the route while you talk about where you are going. Alternatively, ask them to draw a map of their journey to school or the local shop, including any natural or man-made features along the way. 

Holidays are an ideal opportunity to compare the location with their home area — you might ask your child to talk through five similarities and differences, for example. Holidays also provide an opportunity for a museum visit or a trip to a tourist attraction. 

Closer to home, use anything at your disposal! Magazines, TV, films and even some computer games can provide your child with a view of distant places. They enable your child to be transported instantly to another place. Prompt their thinking with questions, such as: What might the weather be like in this place? Why might the road have been built where it is? The list of questions is endless and will lead to all sorts of discussions which will really help to develop curiosity about, and understanding of, the world. 

Further Support And Useful Websites

 General