At Lings Primary School we believe that it is essential for our children to develop an understanding and fascination of the world around them, and this includes through the lens of a geographer. They should become curious about our planet and fascinated by its many places, people, resources and environments. They will understand human and physical processes, and their impact on our world. Children will learn how the Earth’s features are formed and how they have changed over time. They will understand the effect that geography has on our everyday lives at a local, national and global level.

The journey begins in EYFS where children are provided with opportunities to make sense of their physical world and community through a range of personal experiences. This is most commonly achieved through the ‘Understanding the World’ area of the framework but there are opportunities within the other areas too, such as a child creating a map of their route to school in a sand tray.

During Key Stage 1, children will begin to develop knowledge of their local area, an understanding of the United Kingdom, and be introduced to some locations in other continents. They will begin to recognise how they can be sustainable and compare different locations in parts of the world. Children will study the area both within and around the school, their wider community and aspects of the town of Northampton. They will also learn about other locations such as Hunstanton, India, the Sahara Desert and Antarctica.

In Key Stage 2 children will be given the opportunity to further develop their knowledge of their locality and the wider world and broaden their locational knowledge to include a wide variety of places on each continent, including their main geographical characteristics. They will explore the natural processes of the Earth and consider the impact of people on our planet. Topics will include the study of each of the world’s continents and those that consider issues such as sustainability and climate change.

Children will therefore move to secondary school with a sound locational knowledge of the world and an appreciation of the geographical features and events that make each place unique. They will understand similarities and differences across the world and be able to use geographical vocabulary to discuss these. They will be confident when using a variety of sources, including a range of maps and atlases. They will have also had frequent opportunities to participate in field work including a study of their school grounds and surrounding area, and the chance to visit part of the River Nene.

The curriculum has been carefully constructed to ensure children obtain a solid understanding of key geographical concepts and knowledge. This is a knowledge-rich Geography curriculum. Knowledge is given a high status, and the aim is to empower our children and carefully build their understanding of the subject. The knowledge content is specified in detail and is taught to be remembered, not just encountered. Knowledge is sequenced and mapped deliberately and coherently so that beyond the knowledge specified for each unit.

Subject Documents