We believe that Geography helps to provoke and answer questions about the natural and human world, encouraging children to develop a greater understanding of their world and their place and responsibilities within it.

Geography helps children to develop a range of investigation and problem-solving skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can be used to promote children’s social and cultural development.

Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills and feeds a child’s natural curiosity. We seek to inspire in children curiosity and fascination about the world in which they live, and its people, which will remain with them for the rest of their lives; to promote children’s interest and understanding about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

We aim to ensure children are aware of topical geographical issues, the importance of sustainability and human action upon our world and armed with this knowledge debate and make decisions about how they chose to live.

Implementation

Each topic covered is vocabulary rich, as to ensure the children will be secured in their geographical understanding. We make cross curriculum links in history, literacy, mathematics and science where possible.

At St Michael’s Nursery and Infant School, we adapt the geography curriculum to suit our locality by identifying features of our local area and exploring these features in detail from Nursery to Year Two.

Visits to places within and beyond the locality are used to develop children’s understanding of the world in which they live. We would love to visit some of the ‘far away’ places we study through our geography curriculum but have to explore these places using online research and atlases!

Through the framework of the 2014 National Curriculum, geography taught at St Michael’s Nursery and Infant School, aims to ensure that all children:

• develop age-appropriate, accurate knowledge of the location, physical and human characteristics of a wide range of globally significant places including terrestrial and marine locations
• to use this knowledge to provide a geographical context to study and understand the actions of important geographical processes
• understand the key physical and human geographical features of the world
• to be able to use geographical vocabulary which is appropriate and accurate and which develops and evolves from EYFS to KS1
• collect, analyse and present a range of data, gathered through experiences of fieldwork, to deepen understanding of geographical processes
• use and interpret a wide range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes and aerial photographs
• are able to communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length
• to promote children’s social and cultural development helping them to have a greater understanding of their place in the world, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment.

Impact

Through the geography curriculum delivered at St Michael’s, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning by providing investigative and enquiry-based learning opportunities.

We aim for our children to develop a greater understanding of their immediate locality as well as an understanding that we live in one small part of the world we have been given, a world which is very diverse in terms of both people and places.

Children will leave our school with an understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments. It is our aim that the geography curriculum taught at St Michael’s equips children with key knowledge and skills, as set out in the National Curriculum, but also with a sense of awareness of themselves as people within a wide world and the impact that they, as people, can have upon the world in which they live.

EYFS

Geography is about people, places and the world around us. In EYFS the children learn about their immediate locality so they learn about places around our school and grounds. ... They learn about familiar features such as houses, farms and shops building on their everyday experiences.