Geography
Geography Curriculum
Vision Laudato Sii
Earth is our home in space, a unique speck in the unimaginably vast cosmos and the only planet in our solar system capable of supporting live as we know it. Our blue planet provides us with all our needs today and our actions will influence its future survival. We live in an interconnected world and geography helps to explain how we are connected. AtPope Paul, we aim to develop the children’s love of the world around them through geography and inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination for the planet and their place in it for many years to come.
Intent
In order to do this, we follow the Connected Geography scheme. Our teaching equips pupils with knowledge about places and people, resources in the environment and an understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes that have shaped our landscape and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the framework to explain how the Earth’s features are shaped, interconnected and change over time. We also want the children to develop geographical skills: collecting and analysing data, using maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs and digital mapping to name, identify and locate countries, continents and oceans. We want the children to be able to communicate their learning in a variety of ways including sketch maps with a key and diagrams, tables and graphs and writing. We want the children to enjoy and love learning about geography both inside and outside the classroom, including educational visits to develop fieldwork and to practise their geographical skills.
Implementation
Geography is taught in all Key Stages in half-termly topics. Each unit of learning starts with a main question that is then answered through ancillary questions, showing it is an enquiry subject. By the end of the current academic year, we will study two units per year group with the aim of teaching three in the 2021-2022 academic year. Each topic will teach the children locational and place knowledge, aspects of human and physical geography as well as developing a range of geographical skills and fieldwork. The curriculum is designed to build on the children’s prior learning and to widen their knowledge of world from their immediate surroundings and locality to countries in Europe and in other continents.
2020-2021 Curriculum Overview:
| Year Group | Topic 1 | Topic 2 |
| 1 | What is the geography of where I live like? | Why do we love being beside the seaside so much? |
| 2 | Why don’t Penguins need to fly? | Why does it matter where my food comes from? |
| 3 | Why are jungles so wet and deserts so dry? | Why do some earthquakes cause more damage? |
| 4 | Why do so many people in the world live in megacities? | Beyond the magic kingdom:
What is the Sunshine State really like? |
| 5 | How do volcanoes affect the lives of the people on Hiemaey? | Why are mountains so important? |
| 6 | What is a river? | Why is fair trade fair? |
Impact
Geographers ask questions: where things are located on the surface of the earth, why they are located where they are, how places differ from one another and how people interact with the environment. By the time the children leave Pope Paul, we want them to have enjoyed learning about geography, be equipped with necessary geographical skills and knowledge to enable them to be ready for the curriculum at Key Stage 3 and hopefully Key Stage 4. Geography is such a broad subject that some students may study aspects of it at University. But most of all, in this ever changing world, the study of geography will deepen their knowledge of the places and peoples across the world and encourage them to explore, ask questions and undertake new experiences both now and in the future.
