Our Christian Vision
St. Luke’s CE Primary school provides a journey to discover ‘life in all its fullness’. John 10:10. Where children flourish, are happy and succeed. Our distinct Christian values: friendship, love, trust, patience, forgiveness and respect are woven throughout the day, the learning, the gathering, the school.
Our theologically rooted Christian vision meets the specific needs of our school community we aim to remove barriers so that everyone can flourish and live life in its fullest. By the time our pupils leave Year 6 we hope to have removed barriers and enabled our them to grow in faith and recognise the wider world as they continue their journey
At St. Luke’s the children are at the heart of every decision we make to ensure that they are happy, confident and that the opportunities that are provided for them are relevant to their needs both now and in the future. We achieve this by providing an inspirational and creative curriculum, rich in opportunity and full of challenge.
Rationale
At St Luke’s we are Geographers! We believe that Geography is an essential part of the curriculum and teachers ensure that a high-quality science education provides the foundations for understanding the world. Geography is a pivotal part of human life and affects all aspects. Through building up a body of key foundational knowledge and concepts, pupils should be encouraged to recognise the power of rational explanation and develop a sense of excitement and curiosity about the world around us and how it works. They should be encouraged to understand how geography can be used to explain why the world is like it is and the human and physical influences that affect the changes that happen over time.
At St Luke’s we use the Active Learn curriculum which covers the national curriculum. The curriculum is built on the premise that we want to sequence knowledge about the world around us, so pupils have firm building blocks. These building blocks can then be relied upon later as more complex topics are taught. The Active Learn curriculum ensures a spiral curriculum and enables children start to build schema around geography units from an early age. Lessons are designed with cognitive load theory in mind and they follow Rosenshine’s Princip-les of Instruction. The materials provided through the Active Learn curriculum support teacher subject knowledge allowing teachers to focus on specific lesson elements to bring the curriculum to life.
Intent
At St Luke’s CE Primary School, we value Geography, and a high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Our Geography curriculum aims to equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As our pupils’ progress, their growing knowledge about the world will help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.
At St Luke’s, we have a coherently planned and sequenced curriculum which has been carefully designed and developed with the need of every child at the centre of what we do. We want to equip our children with not only the minimum statutory requirements of the Geography national curriculum, but to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of later life.
Implementation
The EYFS and KS1 geography curriculum is knowledge rich, with topics designed to focus in on those key objectives needed in order to build the fundamental knowledge needed. The basic skills learnt through EY and KS1 are essential building blocks, ready for KS2 discrete lessons.
Geography in the Early Years is taught under the umbrella of ‘Understanding of the World’ from the EYFS. The children are supported in developing the knowledge, skills and understanding that helps them to make sense of the world. The pupils are encouraged to talk about where they live and what’s around them. They are beginning to gain knowledge and understanding of the world through:
- Photographs
- Listening to stories and memories of older people
- Role play activities
- Discussing various places, they have been to locally
- Discussing weather changes
In KS1, pupils should develop knowledge about the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They should understand basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical Geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness.
The KS2 geography curriculum is based on the only safe assumption that a teacher can make: that the pupil might go on to study the subject at university, require particular subject knowledge in their future career, or need particular subject knowledge or skills to enable them to be active members of society. As a result, the curriculum has been designed to be fit for that purpose.
The geography curriculum incorporates fundamental geographical knowledge and skills, allowing pupils to build on a firm foundation in future years. An introduction to settlements, tectonic processes and hydrological and climatic processes introduces Year 3 pupils to concepts, vocabulary and knowledge that is capitalised on in subsequent years, laying important foundations of much of their future geographical learning.
When pupils study Migration in Year 4, they will utilise their knowledge of settlement types in order to deepen their understanding of migration patterns. This knowledge and understanding support their comprehension of why communities develop around areas of rich natural resources, and how slums develop. The Natural Resources unit then feeds into the Year 5 unit on Energy and Sustainability, by supporting pupils’ understanding of where energy comes from and how greater sustainability can be achieved. The Year 6 units on Population and Globalisation draw on themes that have been explored throughout KS2, so pupils are really able to approach these complex topics with a great depth and breadth of knowledge. The Rivers unit in Year 4 follows on from the Water, Weather and Climate unit and pupils then continue to build on this knowledge of physical processes through the Biomes unit. The Local Fieldwork unit is in Year 6, so that pupils are exposed to geographical research in KS2. This is a crucial part of a child’s geographical education and we have intentionally incorporated this unit at the end of KS2 to capitalise on their greater maturity and geographical knowledge.
Impact
The impact and measure of this is to ensure students not only acquire the appropriate age-related knowledge linked to the geography curriculum, but also skills which equip them to progress from their starting points, and within their everyday lives. Our aim for geography is to increase the skills needed to navigate an ever-changing world and to have the desire to continue their passion for geography into their journey into high school and beyond!
We aim to create a culture of high geographical aspirations, which will allow our students a platform to develop their learning and careers, and to articulate their understanding of key geographical concepts. We know when our curriculum provision has been successful because this will lead to excellent outcomes by all of our pupils including disadvantaged pupils and those with SEND.
Formative assessment is used as the main tool for assessing the impact of geography as it allows for misconceptions and gaps to be addressed more immediately rather than building on insecure geographical foundations. End points are instrumental in knowing whether pupils have been successful. We aim for our pupils to recall learning with fluidity and automaticity.
Summative assessments are carried out at the end of a topic and at the end of the academic year. The summative assessments enable teachers to evaluate the learning at the end of a unit and they allow subject leaders to monitor the performance of pupil cohorts. Summative assessment allow teachers and subject leaders to identify where intervention may be required to ensure pupils are supported to achieve sufficient progress and attainment.
Children at St Luke’s School will:
- demonstrate a love of geography work and an interest in further study and work in this field
- retain knowledge that is pertinent to geography with a real-life context
- be able to question ideas and reflect on knowledge
- be able to articulate their understanding of geographical concepts and be able to explain their answers using rich vocabulary related to the topic
- demonstrate a high love of mathematical skills through their work, organising, recording and interpreting results within fieldwork lessons
- work collaboratively and practically to conduct fieldwork lessons
- achieve age related expectations in geography at the end of their cohort year.
Click the link below to view our Geography school blog page to see some examples of how our pupils flourish in Geography at St. Luke’s:
https://stlukesceprimary.blog-pages.co.uk/subject/geography/