Our curriculum leader is Melissa Pooley

KS1 Geography Curriculum Statement

KS2 Geography Curriculum Statement

National Curriculum Purpose of Study

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should 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 should 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. 

• Curriculum Intent

• At Houghton Primary School we are geographically situated in a small village on the banks of the River Great Ouse between the market towns of St Ives and Huntingdon. The floodplain which houses Houghton Meadow is a site of special scientific interest. The local area is developing with new housing and road links to accommodate a growing population. We therefore have planned our curriculum to ensure that this contextual geography threads through our studies where and when appropriate and seek to study contrasting areas to support children’s understanding and sense of ‘place’, both physically and in terms of human impact.

  We follow the National Curriculum Geography programmes of study, but aim to develop children’s geographical through a topic based approach which links particularly to our history and science curriculums. We have identified the key geographical knowledge that is important within our context. This, together with clearly identified skills progression and a topic approach which makes good connections with other subjects, supports the development of  our children’s knowledge and understanding within this subject. 

  We take every opportunity to ensure that our school curriculum drivers of oracy, diversity, community, environment and enquiry remain central to our approach for this subject area.

 Curriculum Implementation

At Houghton Primary School Geography is taught in a topic based approach linked with other curriculum areas, most notably History and Science. 

As we are lucky to live in such a beautiful village, we spend time walking around and exploring our locality to find out about the human and physical features of our area and to develop our mapping and fieldwork skills. We explore maps of our locality, UK and the world and use our local knowledge to help us to understand how other places are similar and different: we draw direct comparisons to aid our understanding based upon climate, population, size, location and other key geographical features. We work cross curricularly and also draw upon art and DT as subject areas to further develop our curiosity and understanding of geographical facts and concepts.

 Curriculum Impact

Assessment of geographical skills is ongoing (formative) during lessons. Teachers use the skills statements to assess and use this responsively to support children as necessary.

At the end of each unit teachers assess children’s knowledge through low stakes quizzes and similar activities. Knowledge is revisited over the course of the year to support long term memory  and retrieval.

Making models of the River Nile