‘We Are Geographers’ at Witham Oaks Academy 

Intent – Why do we teach this?

At Witham Oaks Academy, we aim to prepare children with the knowledge, skills and understanding to make sense of a complex and dynamically changing world, their world and to face the challenges that will shape our societies and environments at the local, national and global scale. The study of geography must fascinate and inspire in our pupils a curiosity about the world around them and its people: the beauty of the Earth, the terrible power of Earth-shaping forces, how the ground under our feet is constantly moving and changing.

Other concepts add depth and support a deeper understanding of people, places and environments.  Geography deepens understanding, and our children will be asked to debate many contemporary challenges such as, climate change, food security, energy choices – these cannot be understood without a geographical perspective. Our Geographers will also be geographically skilled: using maps and images of people and places, numerical data and graphical modes of communication to better understand locations around the world. They will compare this new information to better understand their own location and community.

It is our intention that pupils become more expert as they progress through the curriculum, accumulating and connecting substantive and disciplinary geographical knowledge.

• Substantive knowledge- this is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the content
• Disciplinary knowledge– this considers how geographical knowledge originates and is revised. It is through disciplinary knowledge that children gradually become more expert by thinking like a geographer.

Implementation- What do we teach? What does this look like?

We use the ‘Cornerstones’ curriculum as the main mechanism through which we teach geography, which ensures that year-on-year the children cover the aims and compulsory geography coverage as defined by the National Curriculum. Geography is one of the ‘driver’ projects in the Cornerstones curriculum and teaching through this scheme ensures that year on year the children are consolidating, embedding and extending their geographical skills.  These skills include collecting, analysing, interpreting and communicating a range of ideas linked to geographical data and sources. All geography projects are taught in the autumn and spring terms, with opportunities for schools to revisit less secure concepts in the summer term.

The Cornerstones geography projects are well sequenced to provide a coherent subject scheme that develops children’s geographical knowledge, skills and subject disciplines. Although geographical locations are not specified in the national curriculum, we have made the decision to choose them to provide a broad and diverse understanding of the world.

Where there are opportunities for making meaningful connections with other projects, geography projects are sequenced accordingly. For example, children revisit the geography of settlements in the history project School Days after studying types of settlements in the geography project ‘Bright Lights, Big City’.

We provide opportunities for cross-curricular links to be made, especially through applying maths and science skills (for example, learning about grid references when reading maps). Our geography curriculum is further enriched by providing crucial opportunities for pupils to carry out local fieldwork enquiries in the summer term. In doing so, pupils retrieve previous geographical knowledge and skills and apply them in new contexts. This emphasis on the local environment ensures that the children’s learning remains relevant.

• In year 3, pupils learn about significant places in the United Kingdom and carry out fieldwork to discover how land is used in the locality.
• In year 4, pupils conduct a local transport links enquiry to prove a hypothesis, gathering data from maps and surveys before drawing conclusions.
• In year 5, pupils carry out an enquiry to identify local settlement types.
• In year 6, pupils analyse data and carry out fieldwork to find out about local road safety. They study patterns of human settlements and carry out an enquiry to describe local settlement patterns.

Geography knowledge is rarely static. The subject is dynamic because the world, and our understanding of it, is continually changing. Yet, some key geographical concepts will be visited through every year group. All activities will deepen the children’s understanding of one or more of the following concepts:

• Nature: the land, water, air and ecological system; landscapes; and the processes that bring them about and change them. 
• Processes: societies, communities and the human processes involved in understanding work, home, consumption and leisure – and how places are made.
• Humankind: crucially, linking the physical world and human environments and understanding the concept of sustainable development.
• Place and space: recognising similarities and differences across the world and developing knowledge and understanding of location, interconnectedness and spatial patterns. For example, our address marks the location of our house, but place describes where we feel at home.
• Significance: the ‘zoom lens’ through which the subject matter is ‘seen’, and the significance of local, regional, national, international and global perspectives.

Impact- What will this look like?

We will know that our Geography education has been successful in our school when we have enabled our pupils to develop a rich cultural capital, which will provide a foundation for future lifelong learning. As geographers, our children will leave feeling curious about the world around them and the people in it because they have a good understanding of their community, town, county, country and world. The children will have developed practical skills they can use beyond school and into adulthood, alongside a firm foundation of knowledge on which to build upon.

• Most children will achieve age related expectations in Geography at the end of their cohort year.
• Children will retain knowledge that is pertinent to geography with a real-life context.
• Children will understand how geography ‘happens’ in their local area.
• Children will have a good understanding about the world around them and how it has been shaped.
• Children will know more, remember more and understand more.
• The pupil voice will represent an understanding of what geography is and how they have applied this learning in a given context as part of a highlight task.
• Children will begin to understand their wider world and the implications that we as citizens have on it
• Children will work collaboratively to solve problems and explain the processes that they have taken/observed within a real-life context.
• Children will act as good citizens within their local community.
• Children will be able to apply their knowledge in a secondary setting.
• Children will acquire interconnected geography knowledge and skills that are relevant and appropriate through the 10 Big Ideas

Geography Overview