Geography at HMS

Intent:

At HMS, we believe that Geography should nurture pupils’ curiosity and inspire a fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and both natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. Geographical knowledge and skills will enable pupils to explain how the Earth’s features are shaped, interconnected and change over time.

Children at HMS will learn how their local environment impacts on their lives, and the impact their lives have on the local, national and international environment. This will in turn give them the foundations to become responsible global citizens.

Our pupils will learn the important skills of fieldwork and will understand how this can help them in their wider life, through school and beyond. This includes having basic map reading skills and a confidence of how to use atlases to find new countries. They will then learn about how to link this to how land use has changed over time and the evidence of this through maps. Other key skills, such as using a compass effectively for numerous purposes including orienteering, are taught explicitly throughout the curriculum.

Our pupils will gain a conceptual understanding of:

•          places - locally, nationally or internationally

•          patterns of physical geography

•          the language of geographers, when discussing physical and human geography.

Implementation:

Geography at Hanborough Manor Primary school is taught for two hours a week to ensure learner’s depth of knowledge and skills is sufficient. We aim to hook the pupils’ interest through our learning being linked to real life examples such as fieldwork; for example, how farming in the area has changed over time and been impacted as a result of recent housing estates being built.

Real life experiences and hands on approaches to Geography are used regularly throughout teaching to ensure children are making links to their local area, how it is used, as well as the land use throughout the world. Comparisons of our village and local cities are made to other significant places around the world, and children will investigate wealth and the impact on our climate through geography topics. While exploring these topics, children will be using geographical skills in every lesson to build and deeper their understanding of each topic. They will be given opportunities to use these in varied situations and ways to demonstrate their knowledge. To further extend our learners, open-ended questioning will allow children to become more independent learners, showcasing their skills and knowledge of the topic.