Inquisitive, Resilient, Independent    

At Anglesey, we are a vibrant and nurturing school community, where children are given the skills to become, inquisitive, resilient, independent learners.    

Our curriculum provides a range of creative, challenging and inspiring experiences for all.  This equips our children with the life skills to be happy, flourish and be successful…Today, tomorrow and in the future    

GEOGRAPHY INTENT   

Our Geography curriculum is designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. Fieldwork and educational visits are invaluable at Anglesey, as we aim to provide our children with as many experiences as possible in the world, in order for them to draw on those experiences and to connect better with the world and to help to show relevance to their own lives. We intend to equip children with geographical skills to develop their knowledge through studying places, people and natural and human environment. Geography at Anglesey is linked to other curriculum areas as much as possible.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT AND VALUES     

INQUISITIVE    

An inquisitive learner has a thirst for learning and wants to discover as much as they can about the world by asking questions.    

RESILIENT    

A resilient learner can bounce back from challenges and problems, but also has the capacity to adapt in the face of challenging circumstances, whilst maintaining a stable mental wellbeing.    

INDEPENDENT    

An independent learner takes responsibility for their own learning. They are self-motivated and accept that frustration in the present is worthwhile to achieve future success. They take initiative and are good problem solvers.    

Pupils develop Inquisitiveness in  

GEOGRAPHY by:  

• Asking and answering questions about local places
• Questioning why/how people live around the world and how they are similar or different to our local area
• Through questioning to encourage children to discover answers  to their own questions through exploration and research.
• Taking part in Fieldwork and educational visits to encourage children to ask and answer questions maybe not considered in the classroom.
• Enquiring where their family and the families of other children originated.
• Questioning how to improve or change their local area and school grounds, aswell as identifying what is already positive in the area and community.
• Questioning effects on the environment
• Outdoor learning environment provides opportunities to explore the natural world and in Early Years, seasonal changes further enhance opportunities to foster curiosity and develop an enquiring mind e.g. What’s happening to the leaves in Autumn?

Pupils develop Resilience in GEOGRAPHY by:   

• Experiencing fieldwork in challenging situations, for example, using different types of fieldwork sampling, to observe, measure and record an area in Bewdley along the River Severn.
• Studying how people and places have had to show Resilience in their community, for example the homeowners in Bewdley after the floods and the government’s response
• Identifying the challenges people had to overcome in a variety of circumstances for example Brunel’s building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

Pupils develop Independence in GEOGRAPHY by:   

• Working as part of a group with a specific role or independently during fieldwork  
• Creating a report on a particular country, place or group of people and present the information
• Undertaking a project on the local community, for example the Clean Air Zone
• Create and answer quizzes about places and people

CREATIVE, CHALLENGING AND INSPIRING EXPERIENCES     

Geography is taught through creativity and is designed to be as practical as possible in order to achieve this. For example, using a variety of materials to recreate a landscape for example of an area in Bewdley around the River Severn and Year 1 visit local parks to experience and observe the physical and human features. Fieldwork is invaluable to pupils, allowing them to broaden their sometimes limited experiences and to begin to relate their experiences to the wider world.

Children are encouraged to present findings in a variety of ways, including presentations to the class, posters for around school and the community, presentations to others. For example, school council became involved in a Birmingham City Council project to encourage people reduce traffic around the school and to restrict parking outside school. The children produced posters which they took outside the school gates to inform parents of the campaign. They also presented their campaign via the school website.

Children can present in other ways too for example, creating news and radio broadcasts to report on the flooding in Bewdley and creating a holiday brochure of Greece from the perspective of a tourist.

Outdoor learning environment provides opportunities to explore the natural world and in Early Years and Year 1, seasonal changes further enhance opportunities to foster curiosity and develop an enquiring mind e.g. What’s happening to the leaves in Autumn? The children take part in seasonal walks to develop understanding of similarities, differences, patterns and change e.g. changes over time.

‘My House’ in Reception allows children to explore the sense of place using postcodes & addresses to locate our own houses on Google maps. It is also part of the life skills curriculum for example, the importance of children knowing their address and looking after the class and school environment

As a school with over 90% EAL pupils, with children whose families may have been born in another country to England, learning about the cultures of places and countries are important, so that we respect the similarities and differences between people and live together in tolerance of each other. For example, studying Mandarin in Years 3, 4 and 5, China as a country and Chinese New Year.

We also use books, stories and research online to find out about different countries, villages and towns.

We aim to take children further afield if possible, including a day trip to Weston Super Mare for Year 2 children to experience a completely different landscape, features and way of life and a visit to Bristol for Year 5 to visit the Clifton Suspension Bridge and SS Great Britain. 

GEOGRAPHY IMPLEMENTATION  

 We teach the National Curriculum supported by clear skills and knowledge progression. This ensures skills are built on year on year and sequenced appropriately. Geography is usually taught in blocks, with each year group having two main focussed topics and additional smaller Geography projects linked to the topic being taught. There are links across the curriculum, in particular History, with samples of Geography work in the English curriculum.

GEOGRAPHY IMPACT  

 Each year group keeps a folder of work which clearly shows progression across the year. An additional folder is kept to show evidence of progression across the whole school from Nursery to Year 6. Year managers regularly involve groups of pupils in discussions about their own learning, including reflecting on standards achieved against the planned outcomes. 

Children will retain prior learning and explicitly make connections between what they have previously learned and what they are currently learning. They will be able to use the experiences gained on visits etc to support their thinking about the Geography topics studied.