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. At St. Catherines we will equip our 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 our 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, this will help our pupils understand and develop their skills to provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.
Aims
The aim of geography in primary schools is to develop children’s curiosity and fascination in the world and the people in it. Here at St Catherine’s geography is taught through topics, which enables children to see the close links between geography and the rest of the world around them. Each class at St Catherine’s has a ‘where are you from?’ display. From this, children gain an understanding of their own personal geography. Lessons at St Catherine’s are focused around developing geographical skills as well as knowledge and understanding.
Pupils at St Catherine’s have very positive views of their geography lessons:
Year 5 pupil: “Geography is very fun because we have to do lots of activities and I enjoyed learning things from the atlases. I like when we do fieldwork as it’s great to work in a team”
They also enjoy learning how geography ties in to our lives:
Year 2 pupil: “I like geography because we learn about the real world.”
Year 5 pupil: “I like learning what rivers do for us, like the Amazon River.”
You can continue the geography learning at home by:
- Getting outside in the real world and noticing the human and physical features of the world around us
- Watching television programs with geographic content and discussing the themes and issues afterwards
- Using different maps and displaying these where possible
- Websites such as:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/geography.shtml
