Teachers create a positive attitude to geography learning within their classrooms and reinforce an expectation that all pupils are capable of achieving high standards in geography. Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of geography involves the following;

• Geography is taught in planned topic blocks, and cross curricular links are made where possible. This is a strategy to enable the achievement of a greater depth of knowledge. Many of these topic blocks are taken from the Connected Geography (Collins) learning programme while some are more specific to our school and local area.

• Key enquiry questions for topic blocks and ancillary questions for lessons are used widely to encourage children’s curiosity and therefore their depth of learning of geographical knowledge and skills.

• Geographical skills are embedded into lessons to ensure these skills are being developed throughout the children’s school career. New vocabulary and challenging concepts are introduced through direct teaching. This is developed through the years, in-keeping with the topics.

• Children are offered a wide range of fieldwork activities in the school grounds and local area, visits, trips and visitors to complement and broaden the curriculum. Fieldwork provides opportunities to develop and consolidate skills and concepts introduced in the classroom and allows pupils to extend their understanding of the ‘real’ world. Fieldwork provision enables pupils to become observant, to develop the skills of recording, analysis and deduction and to start to develop enquiring minds.

• During Key Stage 1 we challenge and support our children to carry out a number of geographical investigations through the Connected Geography learning programme which enable them to use and apply basic and appropriate subject vocabulary, subject tools (including maps, aerial photographs and graphical data and fieldwork skills) to recognise, identify, describe, observe, reason and begin to explain in simple terms the interaction of people with their environments.

• Through Lower Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) in geography, learning and teaching builds on the knowledge and understanding, skills and attitudes outcomes at Key Stage 1 and the pupils make progress through being provided with opportunities to reach explanations (which means that their understanding is based on the clear use of evidence e.g. from data they have collected and presented in a graph) and reach conclusions about topics, places and issues they have studied through the Connected Geography learning programme. Another important aspect of geography at Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) is that our pupils begin to be able to see the world through the perspective of different stakeholders i.e. people and things that have an interest in or are connected to an issue or place. To this end during Key Stage 2 (Years 3 and 4) we challenge and support our children to undertake geographical investigations from Connected Geography which enable them to use and apply appropriate and increasingly specialised subject vocabulary, subject tools (such as satellite imagery and GIS) and fieldwork skills to recognise, identify, describe, observe, reason, explain and reach basic conclusions about the interaction of people with their environments.

• In the EYFS, we teach geography as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year, relating the geographical aspects of the children’s work to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals. Geography makes a significant contribution to the ELG objectives of developing a child’s knowledge and understanding of the world.

Our whole school approach to the teaching and learning of history involves the following;

• History is taught in planned topic blocks, and cross-curricular links are made where possible. This is a strategy to enable the achievement of a greater depth of knowledge. Many of these topic blocks are taken from the Connected History learning programme while some are more specific to our school and local area.

• Key enquiry questions for topic blocks and ancillary questions for lessons are used widely to encourage children’s curiosity and therefore their depth of learning of historical knowledge and skills. We structure learning in history through big question led enquiries about relevant historical topics, places and themes.  Our curriculum is therefore ‘knowledge rich’ rather than content heavy as we recognise that if we attempt to teach historical topics, places, themes and issues in their entirety we restrict opportunities for pupils to master and apply critical thinking skills and achieve more challenging subject outcomes. The learning is carefully structured through the use of ancillary questions, to enable pupils to build their knowledge and understanding in incremental steps of increasing complexity until they reach the point where they are able to answer the question posed at the beginning of the investigation.

• Learning and teaching in history also recognise the importance of the local area with a number of our investigations involving observation, recording, presentation, interpretation and the evaluation of historical information outside of the classroom e.g. significant people, places and events locally.  We make use of our local area through visits to enhance learning e.g. Stonehenge, Cranborne Ancient Technology Centre.

• Learning and teaching in history are interactive and practical allowing opportunities for pupils to work independently, in pairs and also in groups of various sizes both inside and outside of the classroom.  Wherever possible we provide our pupils with contemporaneous historical evidence including narratives, paintings, photographs, artefacts, and data in the form of censuses and films to analyse and from which to reach conclusions and make judgements.

• In the EYFS, we teach history as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year, relating the historical aspects of the children’s learning to the objectives set out in the Early Learning Goals. History makes a significant contribution to the ELG objectives of developing a child’s understanding of the world.

Assessment is an integral and continuous part of teaching and learning and is based upon teachers’ judgements of pupil attainment and progress. We assess the children’s work in geography by making informal judgements as we observe the children during lessons. Children receive effective feedback through teacher assessment, both orally and through written feedback.

Regular and ongoing assessment informs teaching to support and enable the success of each child. In KS1 and KS2, Summative assessment takes place at the end of each unit. Formative assessment takes place on an ongoing basis and teachers adjust planning accordingly to meet the needs of their class. In addition, we place a strong emphasis on the importance of questioning: this enables us both to explore topics together as a class as well as verbally develop skills during our lessons.

The effectiveness of teaching and learning is monitored through lesson observations, book scrutinies and conversations with pupils.

The Foundation Stage deliver geography content through the ‘Understanding of the World’ strand of the EYFS curriculum. This involves guiding children to make sense of their physical world and their community. In EYFS, we assess the children’s Understanding of the World according to the Development Matters statements.

However, to truly understand the impact of our Geography curriculum, you have to come and see us!