Geography

Mr Bloomfield

Geography Subject Leader

Mr Bloomfield is our Geography Subject Leader. Mrs Frankish, our Chair of Governors, is our link Governor for Geography.

For all the latest Geography news, please click here.

Intent

Our overarching aim at St Barnabas is for our pupils to achieve great things and live life in all its fullness. Offering a well-rounded and balanced curriculum is one way we work towards achieving this and Geography provides the perfect platform for children to achieve great things and explore what living a full life might look like for them and the people around them. At St Barnabas, we believe that high quality geography teaching offers our children the foundations for a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. Our geography curriculum at St Barnabas provides children with skills and knowledge for developing a natural curiosity and fascination about the world around them.

The aims of our geography curriculum at St Barnabas are to develop pupils' contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places and to be able to identify their key physical and human features and characteristics. At St Barnabas, we are also passionate about allowing our pupils to develop an interest and understanding of their local area. Across the curriculum, we provide pupils with opportunities to complete fieldwork and observations of the geography surrounding them and our school. This makes our curriculum unique and relatable to the children at our school.

By the end of a child’s journey at St Barnabas, they should have an understanding of geographical vocabulary, as well as key facts and skills that enable them to ask questions about the world around them. Ultimately, our aim is to ensure pupils leave St Barnabas knowing more, remembering more and understanding more about the world around them.

Implementation

At St Barnabas, we have developed our geography curriculum by using ‘Oddizzi’, an e-learning resource and community that immerses children in the real world. We have used the Oddizzi pathway planning and schemes of work, as a base and starting point, for producing and delivering our geography curriculum. From this, we have created our own geography curriculum overview and skills and knowledge progression document, which outlines the key skills for each unit in geography and categorises the skills into four key areas: locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography and geographical skills and fieldwork.

Each lesson starts with a focus question and we believe that by starting sessions with key questions, this enables the children to be engaged in their understanding of what they are being taught. Throughout each geography unit, a variety of key skills from the skills and knowledge progression document will be taught. Alongside this, each lesson will have a group of keywords that can be displayed during a lesson, to support children's knowledge and build vocabulary.

Teachers at St Barnabas use the resources and planning available on Oddizzi, as a tool for teaching and planning high quality, exciting and engaging geography lessons. Google earth, Google maps and Digimap resources are also widely used across the curriculum, to provide a practical and visual element to geography lessons.

Impact

The impact of what we have done has been positive for children, teachers and subject leadership. Teachers understand clearly what they have to teach but also why they have to teach it. This allows for teachers who find geography a difficult subject; to feel empowered and confident about their delivery. It also gives signposts for all in terms of resources available in school and out of school. This saves teacher time in terms of planning and preparation and impacts massively on their work life balance. Ultimately, allowing teachers to be more confident of their delivery of geography.Teachers know explicitly what needs to be taught in their topics and this also allows for teachers to be creative in how they would like to teach each topic. With additional websites and resources available to teachers, such as Oddizzi and Digimaps, this has provided teachers with a wide range of ideas and tools for teaching geography effectively.

For the children, the first major impact we have seen is that they enjoy their geography lessons. Through pupil conferencing, pupils can explain their key vocabulary being taught and can explain geographical concepts taught, by using the knowledge and skills obtained through a geographical topic. As you can see, what we have done in terms of geography is having a profound impact in school. Children enjoy geography and teachers feel confident teaching the subject.

Overall, by the time children leave St Barnabas, they are aspiring Geographers who can interpret a range of Geographical information including maps, globes and digital imagery. We also strive to ensure children leave St Barnabas with a natural curiosity and care for the world around them.