Geography
At Fairburn we love that geography can be found all around us, from the awe and wonder of watching a thunderstorm while safely standing behind a window to noticing the, often subtle, changes in land use as you walk through a town. Geography helps us make sense of the world through a combination of our personal experiences and the opportunity to explore the varied viewpoints of others. It provokes questions about the relationship between the human and physical, or natural world; how on the one hand mountains, rivers and the climate might influence where we build our houses or how we move from place to place, whilst on the other the effect that building our settlements and carrying out our daily routines might be having on the planet.
Our Geography consultant is called Jon Cannell who works in partnership with us to support staff training and enhance staff knowledge and understanding so that all children can see the world as Geographers.
Jon works for the Geography Association as Primary Curriculum leader. Please see link for further information.
Our Geography Curriculum
It is very important to us that our children develop a ‘sense of place’ which can be defined as exploring what a place is like, from its range of sights and sounds to what happens there and how that can make us feel. This applies equally to developing knowledge of familiar places, those that the children have no prior knowledge of and all the places in between. Our curriculum will pique their curiosity and build understanding of the culturally, socially, technologically and ecologically diverse world. We want them to compare, contrast and connect their personal experiences of how their local community is organised and what its like to live here with places further afield, whether that is a few miles or a few thousand miles from our neighbourhood. We want them to understand how human action impacts on the world in which they live in the past, present and future, and empower them with the skills and knowledge to act as a responsible global citizen.
We believe that it is an important and inspiring subject, and through our carefully sequenced and relevant curriculum the children are able to fully immerse themselves in learning about the geographical processes, events, interactions and changes that occur at a range of scales.
Our Geography curriculum includes all aspects of the National Curriculum, but what brings it to life and adds real meaning is that it uses always uses our local area as a point of reference before building progressively into the wider world.
The following areas of study are interwoven and progressively built upon through each topic:
- Locational Knowledge
- Place Knowledge
- Human and Physical Geography
- Geographical skills and Field work
What does teaching and learning look like?
EYFS/Y1
Geography is central to how we deliver the Understanding the world component of the Early Years framework. We provide a wealth of opportunities and support for our children to explore and expand their knowledge of their place in the world. We enable them to experience a range of settings and perspectives first hand, directing them to use their senses and emotions to interpret place and space.
Y2‑6
Geography is taught termly through a broad range of topics as shown through the long-term plan at the bottom of the page. As part of the latest review of our geography curriculum plan, staff ensured that its content was balanced between substantive knowledge (facts learnt) and declarative or disciplinary knowledge (for example, developing a sense of place and following geographical enquiry) so that a full understanding of the subject is gained. Teachers constantly model questioning techniques to encourage our children to both ask and investigate questions associated with geographical themes and concepts, places and events. We start our learning journey by exploring our local area, drawing links through similarities and differences to the wider world. Geographical learning is embedded through revisiting and re-contextualising geographical knowledge across multiple topics and across multiple year groups enabling a deeper and richer understanding of geography to develop. Each topic has a high-quality text attached to it and is framed through the use of an over-arching big question and a number of subsidiary questions as part of an enquiry process as shown below.
Children are taught about a range of diverse places from various perspectives and are supported to deepen their understanding through generating their own questions, questions that might challenge stereotypes or the ‘single stories’ around a geographical topic that are often portrayed in the media. They will have the time and opportunity to carry out their own collaborative investigations and share their findings as well as justify any opinion formed. The carefully selected topics will empower our children to develop their collective and individual voice and an understanding of how they can play their part in building and applying accurate and relevant geographical knowledge.
Teachers will inspire children’s learning through supporting the use of arrange of geographical lenses, such as: enabling debates and discussion; planning fieldwork/trips; selecting video and visual materials for pupils to analyse and critique; supporting research using sources including the internet, books, members of the local and expanded community and introducing a selection of maps and mapping skills. First and foremost, teachers will bring geography to life by taking the opportunity to ‘locate’ the everyday geography we all undertake when dressing for the weather, eating foods grown in different environmental conditions or travel to and from school each day
SEND
We believe in an adaptive approach to learning, where teachers enable access for all children to engage with the geographical content being covered. Scaffolding is put in place to support learning as required , which might take the form of providing vocabulary lists; writing structures or speaking their thoughts into a laptop as an alternative method of recording. All children will be able to fully access all field trips and where necessary special arrangements will be put in place to enable this.
Wider Opportunities
Staff take every opportunity to relate Geography to all other areas of learning. An obvious example of this is making links with historical learning. Another example is that each class has a map of the British Isles and a World map. When a place/country is mentioned, this is pointed out on the map and a brief discussion takes place.
Children are active within our local village by helping with litter picking and each class has started to plant and maintain a planter which is located nearby.
Children frequently map stories out which reinforces their map drawing skills and deepens their understanding of the text.
Children are excited by researching places around the world and often choose a Geography based project when they are working on their personal projects each term.