Geography helps children to understand the world around them and their place within it.

From Foundation to Year 6, children progressively develop their knowledge of places, people and environments alongside the geographical skills needed to investigate them. They explore both human and physical geography, ask questions about places and environments, undertake fieldwork and learn to interpret an increasingly wide range of geographical information.

Our curriculum develops from children's immediate experience of their local environment towards a broader understanding of the United Kingdom and the wider world.

Locational and Place Knowledge

Children progressively develop their knowledge of where places are and what they are like.

In Foundation, children begin by naming and locating different parts of their local community, including places such as their church and local shops. In Key Stage 1, this develops into locating places within the United Kingdom and wider world, including identifying the UK on a map and locating significant local places such as Oundle, Peterborough and Stamford.

As children progress through Key Stage 2, they locate an increasingly wide range of places within the UK and across the world. Their understanding develops beyond simply locating places to identifying and describing their important physical and human features.

By Years 5 and 6, children locate and investigate places of global significance and consider significant features and events.

Human and Physical Geography

Children learn to recognise, describe and explain the human and physical features of different environments.

Their learning begins with exploring both the built and natural environment around them. Children learn to describe places and features using appropriate geographical vocabulary and express their views about the environments they encounter.

As they progress, children identify patterns, observe how places change over time and develop their understanding of the relationships between people, places and environments.

In upper Key Stage 2, children consider how human and physical features influence one another, recognise patterns in geographical processes and explain some of the links and interactions between people and the places in which they live.

Geographical Enquiry

Children are encouraged to ask questions and investigate the world around them.

In Foundation, this begins with commenting on and asking questions about familiar places and the natural world. Children are also encouraged to show care and concern for living things and their environment.

As children progress, their enquiries become increasingly sophisticated. They move from asking and answering simple geographical questions towards investigating similarities, differences and patterns between places and environments.

In Key Stage 2, children increasingly ask questions such as how, why, what happened and what might happen in the future. By Year 6, they use their geographical understanding to make predictions, test simple hypotheses and explore geographical issues.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork enables children to apply their geographical knowledge and skills to the real world.

Beginning with exploring their immediate environment, talking to people, examining photographs and visiting local places, children develop increasingly systematic observational and fieldwork skills.

They learn to observe, record, name and explain geographical features and, as they progress, use a broader range of techniques to collect information about human and physical features.

By upper Key Stage 2, children use methods including sketch maps, plans, graphs and digital technologies. In Year 6, they use numerical and quantitative skills to analyse, interpret and present data collected through fieldwork observations, measurements and recordings. The fieldwork progression is set out across the table on page 2 of the curriculum overview.

Maps and Geographical Information

Children progressively develop their ability to use, understand and interpret maps and other geographical sources.

Younger children encounter simple maps, photographs, globes and other representations of places. They learn that symbols have meaning and begin to use maps to identify features and follow simple routes.

As they progress, children use atlases, aerial photographs, digital maps and satellite images and develop their understanding of compass directions and map symbols.

In Key Stage 2, children develop their use of Ordnance Survey maps, including recognising conventional symbols and using four-figure grid references. By Year 6, children interpret a wider range of geographical information and maps, including different scales and projections, thematic and digital maps, and use six-figure grid references.

Developing as Geographers

Across the curriculum, children progressively learn to approach places and environments as geographers. They develop their ability to:

• locate places and identify their significant features;
• recognise and explain human and physical geographical features;
• ask increasingly challenging geographical questions;
• investigate similarities, differences, patterns and change;
• undertake observations and fieldwork;
• collect, record, analyse and present geographical information; and
• use maps, atlases, photographs, digital resources and other geographical sources.

These skills develop alongside children's growing knowledge of the world, enabling them to investigate places and consider the relationships between people, environments and geographical processes.

Geography Curriculum Overview

Our Geography Curriculum Overview shows how children's geographical knowledge and skills develop progressively from Foundation to Year 6 through locational and place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical enquiry, fieldwork and the interpretation of geographical information.

Please view our Geography Curriculum Overview below to see the progression of learning across the school.