Geography

Geography Intent

Our Geography provision will aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. We want to equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. Local geography will also be important so that children can compare and contrast with other locations. Our aim is for our pupils to have a secure understanding of local, national and international geographical issues and be able to discuss this confidently using key vocabulary accurately. Our whole school curriculum vision supports and drives our intent for Geography at Far Forest Primary.

Our intent  is to teach content in small, manageable steps to reduce cognitive load. The geography curriculum will ensure that children have the pre-requisite knowledge required in order to access new learning and concepts are revisited to ensure that children build on and retain what they have been taught in previous years. Retrieval practice will be used to support children transferring ideas from their working memory into their long term memory. Children will be given regular opportunities to retrieve through;

• Termly POP tasks applying learning in different contexts
• Quizzes
• Making links across the curriculum
• Memory games
• Sharing and imparting their knowledge to others through presentations/assemblies.

Implementation

Planning

At Far Forest Primary we strongly believe in children knowing more and remembering more. The key skills and knowledge for each topic covered across the school has been carefully tailored to meet the needs of our pupils. This is achieved by ensuring that planning not only introduces children to new learning but also reinforces and builds on prior learning. Furthermore, the vocabulary that the children are exposed to over the years is clearly outlined on plans so our pupils are encouraged to speak like e.g a historian, scientist etc.. This is modelled by all staff and training has provided teachers and TA's with the tools to create a vocabulary rich classroom that supports pupils. 

Our curriculum is enquiry based with a key question driving the learning. Our tailored plans support our intent and provide opportunities for children to become critical thinkers, explore ideas, make connections and ask their own questions. See sample medium term plans below which outline how we plan and also how prior learning is not only embedded but developed. All plans are linked to our school drivers of 'Communication & Language', 'Resilience, Diversity and Possibilities'.