Geography
At Bredbury St Mark’s we have tailored our curriculum to support the needs of our children.
Our curriculum provides our children with a high-quality geography education that ignites their curiosity and inspires their interest of the world around them. We have created a curriculum that equips our pupils with knowledge about the diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments within our world; helping the children to develop a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As the children progress through the school, they are taught a curriculum that has been carefully planned to reflect their growing knowledge and interest of the world; it builds upon the children’s developing knowledge of the world around them ensuring that they have a solid foundation of their immediate Geographical surroundings. As the children move through the school years, they learn more of the wider world and the peoples and environments of other countries.
The starting point for our curriculum development was thinking about what knowledge and experiences the children at Bredbury bring with them when they enter school and where we need to develop their knowledge of the world. We asked ourselves- What do our children really need to enable them to become good geographical learners. We also have a responsibility to show them the world and all the wonders of it. Good citizens of the world and care for their immediate and wider environment
From our experience, we know that we need to focus on developing the children’s concept of their local area and introducing them to the wider world, initially of the UK and then very generally to the wider world. The curriculum is carefully planned to allow the introduction of key concepts, the building of these key concepts and allowing for regular revisits of key knowledge.
Other areas we know we need to focus on is developing our children’s sense of Scale, within their immediate location and when it come to the wider world. We want our children be curious about the world they live and to ask and answer questions.
EYFS lay clear foundations for the golden threads od learning and the geography curriculum is carefully plotted into the EYFS overview and as the children move through school we aim
We expect that the study of Geography will equip our children with an understanding of places, people, resources and environments around them. Through a knowledge-rich curriculum, our pupils will be able to build on prior learning about physical and human processes and the formation and use of landscapes and environments. They will develop an understanding that the Earth’s features are interconnected and change over time, and we will encourage an exploration of their own environment and challenge pupils to make connections between their local surroundings and that of contrasting settlements in different places in the world. Wherever, possible, we will use our local area and community to develop geographical skills and knowledge.
We aim for our children to think and work like geographers through carefully selected enquiry questions and fieldwork that build and extend the children’s knowledge.
‘Studying geography is so important for children, regardless of their age or stage of learning. Geography helps them to make sense of the world around them and piques their curiosity in places and people. Done well, it engages pupils in their world, often spurring them into action, and is fun!’
Ofsted 11 May 2021 https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/author/iain-freeland-hmi-ofsteds-subject-lead-for-geography/