Geography
At St Barnabas, we want our children to be fascinated about the world and the people in it. Their curiosity should last the rest of their lives. Our children should know about the diversity of places, people and human and natural environments and how geography has played important roles in the evolution of people and places. The main purpose of geography is to see and understand patterns in our world and our young geographers are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. They should also understand human and physical processes of the planet.
Geographical concepts
Key concepts run throughout all the geography units we teach.
These include; Physical Features, Human Features, Location, Environment, Settlements, Mapping, Comparison and Climate.
Map skills
Children develop their ability to read and interpret maps as well as create their own.
Visiting places
We visit places locally, nationally and globally both physically and virtually in order to gain an understanding of what they are like now and how they have developed or changed over time.
We have selected our geography units of work to link closely to the National Curriculum. Many aspects affected our choices such as our locality, building links between topics and showing contrast between units. Additionally, as a MAT, we offer the children an exciting trip and residential calendar which enables teachers to teach the children a large part of the National Curriculum including ‘Locational Knowledge’ and ‘Geographical Skills’. As well as this, the children go on a ‘Weekly Visit’ visiting a different place in the world each week which again supports the ‘Locational Knowledge’ element of the National Curriculum.
Why do we teach this topic here in our curriculum?
Due to Multi-Academy Trust having a variety of form entries some of our classes are mixed ages, which means the exact year group that children will learn about each theme may vary (e.g. some children may experience The Cornish Coast in Year 5 whereas others will encounter it in Year 6). Therefore, we have put deep thought into each unit of work and decided where it best fits as well as exposing the children to a world map at the beginning of each topic to show where their particular unit fits around the world or our country.
