Geography

The curriculum is designed to ensure that teaching equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human features. Geographical knowledge and skills are progressive and are sequenced so that as pupils progress through the school, their growing knowledge about the world helps them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives, equipping them well for further education and beyond

At the start

This all starts in the early years where child begin to build early schemas around a sense of place and belonging.  Our EYFS children experience the topics studied through play based experiences. They begin to build connections to their locality and the world directly around them.  These early schemas create links to their village, community and eventually to wider national context.  The children learn about Olveston as cognitive pin point, helping act as a foundation to geography learning.  The topic children experience in EYFS are then built upon when they are in year 1 and 2.

By focusing on where they live and their locality we are able to look further afield and develop and understanding of place. We use these schema of place to draw comparisons to where we live to other places like Bristol and London.  We use first hand observations to better understand the wider world. – How better to understand Antarctica than getting outside on a cold day! 

The Second Phase

In Key Stage 2, continue to extend their knowledge and understanding beyond the local area to include the United Kingdom, Europe, Americas and Africa.  This will include the location and characteristics of a range of the world’s most significant human and physical features. The children develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge. OUR KS2 topics take the children around the world and help them to explore geography in thought provoking ways. OUR interconnected curriculum helps build connects between geography principle and other curriculum areas. 

The Olveston History Curriculum has four over-arching aims:

• Children develop their understanding of Key Geography Concepts – space and scale, Physical environment, human impact, change and sustainability.
• Children develop geographical knowledge and understanding of key locations, physical and human elements and processes of different environments, and how these have and will change. New knowledge and  understanding helps them ask new questions about places/locations
• Children have the skills of a geographer – they can use a range of maps to help them engage in human and physical geography, identify where and how change has taken place, undertake fieldwork to observe and investigation change on location. Asking questions and drawing conclusions.

What does this look like in the long term? 

• The children will develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes
• The children will understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time 
• The children will be competent in the geographical skills needed to: collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
• The children will be able to interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) 
• The children will be able to communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length