The Southfield Geographer

CURRICULUM STATEMENT We aim to create passionate and enthusiastic Southfield geographers, to develop a love for the subject and to connect their own lives to the world and environment around them.

Conceptual understanding is at the heart of our curriculum. Children are provided with geographical literacy through explicitly taught geography skills at the beginning of the year called Spatial Sense. These are geographer’s skills such as how to read a map, find locations and symbols, read climate graphs, use a compass, understand coordinates and interpret population data.

Children are exposed conceptually to understand and learn about both physical geography e.g. rivers, mountains, earthquakes and human geography such as the impact of human behaviour on the environment e.g. types of settlements and globalisation.

Children will learn about the geography of Great Britain and its rivers and mountains and contrast these with other European and world locations. They will gain a strong understanding of continents and how to interact and understand the world of the geographer. Whilst developing a love for geography they will discover their own role as a responsible and global citizen.

Geography is highly regarded as a subject and as a member of the Geographical Society we aim to achieve Gold status in The Geography Mark which reflects outstanding work and practice.

CURRICULUM COVERAGE

HOW OUR 4 CURRICULUM PRINCIPLES ARE REALISED AT SOUTHFIELD

Story Centred Children will begin units with a story to locate the topic and gain understanding e.g stories from famous geographers such as Everest, Doreen Massey, Julies Verne. Geography units and knowledge will also act as the backdrop for learning in non-fiction English writing units.

Knowledge Rich This means the knowledge children will gain has been carefully specified, ordered coherently and builds over time. As children work through our geography curriculum they will know more, understand more about the world around them.

A good geographical understanding relies on firm foundations of knowledge and skills. The skills our curriculum develops, like the knowledge, are specified, ordered coherently and progress over time. This curriculum structure helps pupils to deepen their understanding of physical and human geographical processes, fostering curiosity and fascination for the world we live in.

HOW OUR 4 CURRICULUM PRINCIPLES ARE REALISED AT SOUTHFIELD Contextualised:

Personal Growth:

Children enjoy a geography week each year and learn practical skills such as orienteering, map reading challenges which places their learning into context.

Children are encouraged to bring their own understanding of geography and the world to lessons and to compare and contrast locations

Drama workshops and visits also contextualised the learning and geography topics are often used as a basis for real life maths opportunities.

They develop a sense of their own responsibility towards the planet and the environment as a responsible global citizen

Year 5 and 6 children complete real life fieldwork projects bringing their geographical understanding into context.

Children in Year 6 also attend a residential trip to the Isle of Wight.

Each year children create an independently researched and presented geography project linked to a country of their choice allowing them to distill and contextualised understanding

Contrasting the British isles to other locations allows children to develop respect and empathy for other civilisations and cultures.

ASSESSMENT

• Children are assessed throughout the topic using talk tasks, written outcomes and prior learning discussions in every lesson.

• At the end of each topic the children complete a multiple choice assessment and a written assessment task which is then assessed against the national curriculum objectives for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2.

‘Ex Corde Vita’

Email: admin@southfield.ealing.sch.uk Southfield Primary School Southfield Road Bedford Park London W4 1BD Tel 020 8994 6173