Statement of Intent

The geography curriculum at St. Oswald’s aims to ignite pupils’ fascination with the world in order to provoke and provide them with extensive opportunities to prepare for the next steps in their education, equipping them with the skills needed to become keen, enthusiastic and inquisitive young geographers. It is our aim at St. Oswald’s to ensure that children are able to explore, appreciate and understand their local, and also wider community, showing respect, service and compassion to all within it. Through developing an understanding and appreciation of the world in which we live, we look to contribute to pupils’ personal, spiritual, moral and cultural development, whilst celebrating the diversity of the world in which we live.

Pupils at St Oswald’s not only learn the key geographical knowledge that pupils need to be educated citizens, but also that to become engaged, responsible, custodians of our world. 

Implementation

At St. Oswald’s many aspects of geography are taught within a cross curricular topic, whereby the skills and objectives are embedded throughout the day-to-day learning and across many different subject areas. In other cases, where the objectives standalone from our overall topic, teachers ensure that pupils learn in a variety of ways which makes the skills meaningful, enjoyable and pique their children’s curiosity. In all aspects of geography teaching, pupils are encouraged, and guided towards, asking and answering open questions which helps them to unpick their understanding and become investigators within the subject. Our progressive curriculum ensures that throughout each year, key skills and vocabulary are taught and these are supported by our progression of skills documents and long-term plans. 

At the start of each topic, the children at St. Oswald’s are encouraged to investigate new vocabulary which will appear within their topic and are expected to convey what they know at the end of a topic by using these new words. Throughout the geography two year cycle, teaching has been sequenced effectively in order to support and deepen the pupils’ understanding by building on previous learning. Children at St. Oswald’s will become fluent in applying their gathered knowledge to a number of different contexts, enabling them to interpret geographical information in a number of ways, helping them to prepare them for future learning. 

We place importance on ensuring that pupils are not only prepared for the future, but learn about current topical issues in our ever-changing world. Topics such as Let’s Go Eco [Y3/4] and Extreme Earth [Y5/6] aim to educate our pupils to become responsible, informed citizens who understand their role in shaping our future. We also ensure that pupils have opportunities to investigate their local area and develop their place knowledge with first hand fieldwork experiences, gaining an understanding and appreciation of their locality and making a difference to the world around them. 

Impact

At the end of KS2, pupils at St. Oswald’s will have experienced a well-planned, coherent and logically sequenced geography curriculum. The teaching and learning within each phase is designed to be investigative and ensure cross curricular learning outcomes where opportunities for child-led learning are considered. Evidence of this progressive learning will be shown in a variety of ways throughout each phase, whereby skills learnt will become transferable into other topic areas and themes which the children study. Pupils will also be able to ask and answer questions about their own work, and the work of others, in order to strengthen their understanding and demonstrate a deeper level of knowledge. Teachers will assess the pupils’ understanding in a number of ways ensuring that all children have a number of opportunities to excel in the subject; this may be carried out via quizzes, discussions, presentations, sketches, debates and topic maps, embedded throughout the topic. The key geographical knowledge and skills developed at St Oswald’s will provide pupils with a firm foundation with which to take their learning further, and a fascination and appreciation for the diverse world in which we live.

Where will St Oswald’s take you?

When we study Geography at St Oswald’s, we discuss and learn about different parts of the World throughout the year! We explore culture, landscapes, landmarks and much more!

I wonder where St Oswald’s will take you to next?