Geography

Our geography progression document.

Geography at Aspin Park Academy is well sequenced to provide coherence throughout the subject that develops children’s geographical knowledge, skills, and subject disciplines. Geographical locations have been chosen to provide a broad and diverse understanding of the world. 

Pedagogical Approach

Each Geography unit is delivered through our pedagogical approach where we ‘sow the seed’ to launch our learning. 

We ‘engage’ and ‘develop’ skills through well sequenced enquiry lead questions. At the start of each lesson, we review previous learning. Questioning is carefully planned to help children demonstrate understanding, deepen thinking and connect new material to prior learning. Large concepts or ideas are split into small steps so that the working memory of our children is not overloaded. Recall and repeated practice means children save knowledge in their long-term memory. 

We ‘harvest’ learning at the end of a unit to review our learning. 

Intent

We believe that Geography helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. Children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. Our Geography curriculum enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas. Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops and understanding of concepts, knowledge, and skills. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people; to promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources, and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. The curriculum is designed develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, throughout their time at Aspin Park Academy Primary. 

Implementation

Geography at Aspin Park Academy is taught through the National Curriculum. It is carefully planned to ensure that children can achieve depth in their learning. Key knowledge and skills of each blocked unit of work have been considered to ensure progression throughout each year group across the school.  

Our wonderful outdoor school environment provides opportunities to learn outdoors, undertaking fieldwork and using geographical equipment as well as visits further afield to enhance children’s understanding of geographical knowledge. 

The children know that Geographical 'knowledge' at Aspin is split into 4 main areas: locational knowledge, local knowledge, place knowledge and the knowledge of human and physical features. We use the logos below, to help us think carefully about the skills which we need to apply within that specific lesson. We also have a logo for the 'skill' of fieldwork, as this is something which we highly value in order to give our children the opportunities to question, research and understand the world around them.

Impact

Children at Aspin Park Academy will be equipped with geographical skills and knowledge to enable them to understand the world, its environments, and places near and far, and the processes that create and affect them. 

Our children say: 

“I love learning about different places in our Geography lessons and it’s great when we can go on a visit to see our local community.” 

“I find Geography really interesting, it’s really important to understand what’s going on in our World.”