At Ratby, we aspire for our children to become inquisitive geographers and true global citizens. Our Geography Curriculum is sequenced coherently so that useful knowledge is built through distinct strands:
- Locational Knowledge
- Human and Physical Geography
- Fieldwork
- Map Skills and Compass Skills.
We equip children with geographical skills to develop their knowledge through studying a range of places, people and natural and human environments – both in Britain and abroad. We have a strong focus on our local area and build on this knowledge to enable the children to contrast this with the geography of areas around the world.
Through our teaching, we intend to provoke thought and to encourage children to discover answers to their own enquiry questions through exploration and research to enable them to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of the world and their place in it. Teachers are encouraged to consider opportunities to use the school grounds and the local area for fieldwork, including the ford on Burroughs road and the Roman Bury Camp, to enable children to base learning on first hand experiences and develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes our local area unique and special.
In lessons, class teachers introduce new knowledge which has been carefully considered and sequenced via the principles of instruction. Class teachers expertly impart new knowledge/vocabulary, explicitly taught at the beginning, in context. This facilitates pupils to become confident in using the new knowledge, in context, both verbally and through written forms. Retrieval features highly across the school, with teachers utilising low-stakes assessments and ‘sticky knowledge’ quizzes to ensure learning is retained within the children’s long-term memories. We create lessons that are interesting and ambitious whilst ensuring that they provide an appropriate level of challenge for all learners.
Geography is taught as part of the children’s termly topic work throughout the year. In accordance with the National Curriculum’s expectations, the aims of teaching Geography in our school are:
- To inspire pupils’ curiosity to discover more about the world, supported by our weekly “World this Week” presentations courtesy of Oddizzi, and by studying the Ratby locality.
- To enable children to know about the location of the world’s continents, countries, cities, seas and oceans.
- To develop the skills of interpreting a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial/oblique photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
- To help children understand how the human and physical features of a place shapes it location and can change over time.
- To provide opportunities to collect, analyse and communicate data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes.
Geography Lead
Victoria Toon
