Geography
It is our aim that our geography curriculum equips children with the key knowledge and skills as set out in the National Curriculum, and with a sense of awareness of themselves as people within a wider world and an understanding of the impact that they, as global citizens, can have upon the world in which they live.
Intent
It is our intent to:
- encourage our children to appreciate and take pride in their local community as well as understand that there is a big, wide world out there beyond Billingham.
- develop a culture of curiosity in which children question and discover new things about the world in which they live.
- ensure that children are curious and enthusiastic global citizens by providing first hand experiences that allow children to explore and develop their knowledge and skills through active learning.
Implement
Our Geography curriculum places an emphasis on learning opportunities targeted to help children progressively and sequentially gain knowledge and understanding of geographical content which is planned into each unit of work within and across year groups.
In reception and EYFS, children learn about similarities and differences in relation to places, objects and living things. They talk about features of their own immediate environment and how environments might vary from one another. Children make observations of animals and plants and explain why some things occur, and talk about changes.
Children learn that the environment and living things are influenced by human activity. They will be able to describe some actions which people in their own community do that help to maintain the area they live in.
Geography Led Topics
| Local Area Focus | Autumn 1 | Autumn 2 | Spring 1 | Spring 2 | Summer 1 | Summer 2 | |
| Year 1 | Billingham | ||||||
| Year 2 | The Transporter Bridge | Bright Lights, Big City | Land Ahoy | Land Ahoy | |||
| Year 3 | Significant People in Our Area – John Walker | Rocks Relics and Rumbles | Flow | ||||
| Year 4 | Industrial Billingham | Road Trip USA | |||||
| Year 5 | Stockton to Darlington Railway | Misty Mountain, Winding River | |||||
| Year 6 | Middlesbrough Football Club | Frozen Kingdom |
We make many planned cross curricular links to other subjects when delivering our geography curriculum and have included a local study for each year group. This celebrates our locality. Visits to places “within Billingham and beyond” are used to develop children’s understanding of the world in which they live as well as drawing upon online research and use of atlases.
Curriculum Impact
Through the delivery of our curriculum that our children will:
- have a curiosity and begin to question and discover new things about the world in which they live in
- extend their knowledge and understanding of physical and human geography through school trips
- have an awareness about environmental issues that are in the world today and the impact of these on the world in which they are living
- become curious and enthusiastic global citizens