Geography Curriculum

Intent

At Newnham Infant and Nursery School, our Geography curriculum inspires a curiosity and interest within our children about the world around them. It equips them with the knowledge, vocabulary and enquiry skills to be able to discuss various people, places, environments and current issues. The curriculum will enable the children to develop, apply and embed their skills through various topics, building on what they already know and can do.

The children will learn about their local community and environment (school and Eastcote), London, the UK as well as the wider world. We want our children to develop skills in recognising, describing, explaining, questioning, researching, comparing and evaluating human and physical geographical features together with developing subject specific vocabulary. The children will have opportunities to work collaboratively and through the use of field work, trips and other experiences enable them to make sense of the world around them and develop empathy, respect and a greater awareness of how other people live, similarities and differences within cultures and the future of the planet.

Implementation

At Newnham Infant and Nursery School, we ensure high standards of teaching and learning in Geography, by implementing a curriculum that is progressive throughout the whole school.  We use the Early Years Framework together with the National Curriculum, enabling children to learn about the world and everything in it, encompassing both physical and human aspects of life on our planet.  

Geography is taught through half termly topics that are memorable, engaging and meaningful and aim to develop children’s natural curiosity. Our curriculum progression grid outlines the geographical skills, knowledge and vocabulary that pupils are expected to learn during their time in school.  High quality, up-to-date resources are used to support learning including globes, maps, photographs and atlases – as well as IT resources such as Google Earth in order to also develop children’s digital literacy.

We ensure children gain as much first-hand experience as possible through practical activities, field trips and resources. Our progression map and planning enables children to revisit and embed key skills of a geographer.

Impact

At Newnham Infant and Nursery School,  we judge the success of our geography curriculum by the learning that has happened in books, the discussions we have with children, displays around the school, feedback from staff, the progress children have made against the curriculum progression grid and the percentage of children who have achieved age related expectations in Geography at the end of Key Stage 1. We want the children to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about Geography through the topics taught and have developed a greater understanding of the world around them.

The impact and measure of this at Newnham Infant and Nursery School, is to ensure that children are equipped with geographical skills and knowledge that will enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 2 and for life in the wider world.