Geography
Aims
At Ark Blacklands, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. Our Geography Curriculum is designed to impart knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.
Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.
Geography Overview
Curriculum Approach
At Ark Blacklands, children’s discovery of the world around them and their awareness of place begins in the Early Years Foundation Stage, where children begin to recognise similarities and differences in relation to places, objects, materials and living things. They begin to explain why some things occur and talk about changes.
Our KS1 and KS2 Geography Curriculum is carefully mapped so that all pupils are equipped with a deep knowledge of locations, places and geographical landscapes across the world alongside an understanding of the conditions, processes and interactions that explain features, distribution patters and changes over time and space. Pupils are also provided with opportunities to develop and apply their geographical skills in map reading and observing, collecting, analysing, evaluating and communicating geographical information.
- Year 1: My Local Area, The United Kingdom
- Year 2: Planet Earth, Life in Kenya
- Year 3: Race Around Britain, Europe, Habitats
- Year 4: The Amazon: Rivers and Rainforests, The USA
- Year 5: Asia: Mountains, Volcanoes and Earthquakes
- Year 6: Sustainable Energy, Local and Global Mapping
In Key Stage 1, Pupils begin their journey in geography with a study of the familiar: the local area. They then move outwards to study the United Kingdom and outwards again in to gain an overview of the world and the continents and oceans within it before focussing on what life is like in Kenya.?’.
In Key Stage 2, pupils explore the human and physical geography of a range of different locations and places: the United Kingdom, Europe, Italy, the Amazon, the USA and Asia. They also develop their understanding of physical geography including that of climate zones, biomes, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes. Studies of the rainforests, natural disasters and challenges faced across the globe ensure pupils are also developing their understanding of the interaction between humans and the natural world. In each year group, pupils are able to explore using digital resources, globes and atlases.
Developing Geographical Skills and Fieldwork
Alongside the rich knowledge of the Geography Curriculum, pupils learn Geographical skills, which are ongoing and developed over time. For example, pupils do not study ‘map skills’ just the once and then progress to using a compass. The development of these Geographical skills are ongoing and taught across multiple units of study. There is clear progression within these skills, found at the end of this curriculum document, and a child’s map reading skills in Year 6, combined with their rich knowledge of the planet, will be more advanced than those taught in years 1 and 2.
