Geography
At Castle Hill Primary School, we aim to provide a high-quality geography education that inspires in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching will 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 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.
Our curriculum is structured to introduce and revisit knowledge, either later in the year or the following year as part of a recap and review method to enable children to retain key information and vocabulary.
Aims of the Geography Curriculum
The national curriculum for Geography aims to ensure that all pupils:
develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes
understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time
are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.
Geography at home
Ways to help develop geographical skills at home:
Discuss your local area together - physical features, attractions and activities
Research local human and physical features together at home
Look at maps of places nearby - can they follow a map online of a car journey?
Use Google maps to investigate the local area
Use Google Earth to explore locations around the world
Photographs are a fantastic way of bringing geography to life, they help children to make sense of the world around them and develop an enquiring mind.
Prompt questions
Where do you think this place is?
What did this used to look like?
Where would you find…?
How has ...... changed?
How far away is…?
What is the weather like?
Would you like to live here? Explain why.
If you were in the picture how would you feel, what might you see or smell?