Geography

Geography at Wisborough Green Primary School begins in Early Years, where children have opportunities to explore, discover and begin to make sense of the world around them. We continue this enquiry-led focus as children move through the school, answering, asking and even debating questions with interest and sensitivity that help them to:

understand people, places and environments, and the interactions and connections between them
understand how and why places are changing
consider, imagine and predict the future.

At Wisborough Green, we want to inspire a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with our children for the rest of their lives. We do this by equipping pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with an understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. We believe that our Geography curriculum is fundamental in extending our pupils’ experiences and providing them with a broader knowledge that they can draw upon to help them achieve in other subjects and throughout their lives.

Based on the national curriculum, our teaching helps children to:

develop a contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places, including their physical and human characteristics
understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world
develop a range of geographical skills including:
- collecting, analysing and communicating data gathered through fieldwork
- interpreting a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS),
- communicating geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length through cross-curricular topic areas.

As children progress through school, they develop their knowledge of the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They should understand basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness. We believe that children can develop their geographical skills using the immediate environment to its advantage, through local studies of the school environment, the village and its surrounding area, and comparing and contrasting their locality with those further away. Through real-life experiences and the virtual world, we enable children to understand the world and cultures beyond Wisborough Green in our ever-changing, diverse planet.

Each child studies three units of geography in each phase:-

Key Stage 1: Extreme Survival - Arctic regions; Far Away and Long Ago - Continents and oceans; Wild Wisborough - local study of the school environment and field skills.

Lower Key Stage 2: Extreme Survival – Mountains; Far Away and Long Ago -Coasts and rivers; Wild Wisborough - local study of the village and field skills.

Upper Key Stage 2: Extreme Survival – Americas; Far Away and Long Ago – Europe; Wild Wisborough - local study of the wider area and field skills.

Within each of our phases, pupils have the opportunity to explore and learn about four geographical strands: