Geography Curriculum Mapplewell Primary School - Progression of Knowledge & Skills

Geography is a key driver for three half terms across a two-year cycle. This approach ensures that pupils are exposed to a wide variety of themes and topics which cover the National Curriculum expectations (through our bespoke HCAT curriculum). Each two-year phase has been mapped out to ensure pupils can build upon prior skills and knowledge, enabling them to know more and remember more.

The key concepts, principles and themes have been developed from the National Curriculum into a range of progressive skills through which the pupils are helped to grow and develop to succeed in 21st century Britain. This progressive curriculum allows a creative way of teaching and learning, enabling us to provide a more meaningful and sequential approach to the schema for Geography

Pupils at Mapplewell make progress in Geography through building their knowledge of main 'substantive' concepts. Many of these concepts feature regularly throughout the study of Geography in a range of contexts. As a result, they are particularly important to pupils' understanding of new material.

At Mapplewell, we have collated various substantive concepts into categories to consider when planning geographical topics. Teachers may cover a range of key concepts during the study, and these will be revisited in children's later studies to ensure progression in Geography.

Within Nursery and Reception classes, Geography is linked closely with Understanding the World found in the Development Matters framework with a particular focus on People, Culture & Communities and The Natural World.

At Mapplewell, lessons of Geography are taught in blocks to ensure depth in geographical concepts and context. The Geography curriculum is rich and varied to provide our pupils with the skills required for life in the 21st Century.

The Accelerated Learning Cycle, based on the work of Alastair Smith, is applied in all lessons. It stems from the idea of a supportive and challenging learning environment. The cycle has active engagement through multi-sensory learning and encourages the understanding and demonstration of new learning in a variety of ways. This ensures we can meet the needs of all pupils in the lesson.

A gather, skills, apply approach to the planning and delivery of lessons is taken across school to ensure our pupils develop a deep understanding of specific skills and are able to apply these in a range of situations.

The Geography curriculum we offer is designed to meet the needs of all our pupils. It is rich, varied, imaginative, ambitious, meets the needs of individual learners and can be easily adapted for pupils with additional needs.

Formative assessment is ongoing throughout each lesson. It judges progress and enables teachers to make flexible adaptations to their planned teaching.

Through this regular ongoing assessment, tasks are matched to the ability of each child through differentiated activities, adult support, questioning, and challenges.

INSIGHT is used as a summative assessment to assess foundation subjects. The objectives on INSIGHT aligns with the objectives found on our bespoke HCAT Geography curriculum document. This allows children to acquire skills that depend on their prior knowledge in a well-designed curriculum sequence.

Mapplewell's phase approach progression document.