Geography
Vision
At Doddinghurst Infant School, we are fortunate to have a rich local environment with strong links to the community, and this is at the heart of our curriculum. Our vision is to ensure our children develop a greater knowledge and understanding of what makes our world a special place, and to better prepare them for their future role as global citizens. Our curriculum is taught through an enquiry question approach, giving more value, depth and understanding to locations, cultures, and traditions.
Intent
Our intent is to have a Geography curriculum that begins with a focus on the children’s own locality and progresses to expanding their knowledge of countries and cultures elsewhere in the world. We develop this through a creative curriculum that inspires their learning. Geography at Doddinghurst Infant School is taught through providing children with opportunities to explore their local area and relate this to maps and their place in the country and the world. To help them do this, children are equipped with the skills to use a range of maps and atlases. Our aim is to inspire children to have a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.
Implentation
At Doddinghurst Infant School the Geography curriculum is taught through a geographical enquiry approach including many cross-curricular links. The children will attempt to answer an overarching enquiry question through a combination of approaches starting with a hook to inspire the children. This will enable links to be developed that support the children’s own developing, local, national and global knowledge. The children are encouraged to ask questions and develop their own lines of enquiry, using research skills to facilitate this. We approach learning creatively and understand that there is more than one way to achieve an objective or accomplish a task, in order to make lessons more engaging and accessible to all. We follow a skills progression in order to ensure curriculum coverage and in order to develop the children’s key geographical skills and understanding throughout the school. High quality, up-to-date resources are used to support learning including globes, maps, photographs and atlases – as well as IT resources such as Google Earth in order to also develop children’s digital literacy.
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Self-Belief |
Self-belief can be demonstrated through activities that encourage curiosity, confidence, and the ability to share their learned knowledge · Asking and Answering Questions · Using maps, globes, or compasses and confidently pointing out features, such as rivers, mountains, or countries. · Sharing Observations during local fieldwork. · Making Comparisons. |
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Happiness |
Happiness is often shown through discussions about occasions and events that conjure up the feelings of joy and celebration. For example · Exploring Happy Places, weather and emotions. · Global Happiness · Exploring nature |
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Independence |
Independence involves helping pupils to develop skills and confidence in exploring, observing, and asking questions about the world around them · Nature Walks. · Independent Observation Tasks. · Simple Map-Making and using maps |
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Nurture |
Nurture is demonstrated through an understanding of their environment and caring for it. · Exploring the local area (e.g., school grounds, parks, streets) and discussing how to take care of them. · Encouraging respect for natural and human-made features, such as trees, ponds, or community buildings. · Teaching about littering and recycling |
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Excellence |
Excellence is demonstrated through a variety of skills, attitudes, and achievements. · Knowledge and Understanding of the World · Map Skills · Observation and Enquiry · Fieldwork · Curiosity and Engagement |
MRS LAURA SALMON
Geography Subject Lead
