Intent

At Langer Primary Academy we aim to provide a high-quality geography education that inspires pupils to have a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching will equip pupils with 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.

As pupils progress, their growing knowledge about the world will help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. 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. Alongside teaching a deep geographical knowledge, the curriculum is shaped to develop skills to think like a geographer.

Implementation 

We follow the National Curriculum and take an evidenced informed approach to geography, following the CUSP curriculum. A spiral curriculum ensures knowledge is frequently retrieved and built on, with all pupils retaining knowledge in order to successfully progress to the next year group and beyond. The interleaved curriculum designed to support working memory and cognitive load theory, giving the pupils the best possible opportunities to retain the information. 

Across the key stages, strands of: locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork are woven into the units and learning questions, with pupils discovering new knowledge about the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. Each unit builds on prior learning, extending their knowledge and applies it to new contexts and regions. This begins in Early Years, with pupils being encouraged to explore and make sense of their physical world and their community. Vocabulary is the heart of our curriculum with vocabulary units supporting the acquisition and retention of tier two and tier three words, supporting the understanding and retention of knowledge from each unit. The curriculum is designed to not only increase the geographical knowledge of our pupils, but develop skills in asking questions, planning and conducting fieldwork, collecting and analysing data and drawing conclusions.

For pupils with SEND or an EHCP the curriculum will be adapted in order to meet their individual needs. Children will have a clearly sequenced pathway of progression through the curriculum. Scaffolding should offer small-step support for pupils that prompts their thinking to allow them to access the next step in learning. This could include, but is not limited to: resources, questioning, modelled examples, group work, adult intervention, mixed-attainment partners. Knowledge notes and organizers are used to support learning and retention with dual-coded prompts to support cognitive load and working memory. 

Impact

Our pupils leave Langer confident in their ability to explore the world around them, with a secure knowledge base to transition them onto their next stage of education. They have a fascination about the world and are able to draw similarities and differences between their local context and other localities around the world. Assessment, conducting through a combination of teacher assessment, cumulative quizzing and self and peer assessment, informs next steps in learning and allows teachers to identify gaps in knowledge as appropriate before the next stage in the pupils’ learning.