Geography

Geography Leads: Miss Burch and Mrs Welsh

Governor Lead: Jon Neal

At Heath Primary School, we believe geography should inspire children to become active global citizens and to be curious about the world and the diversity of cultures within it. To achieve this, children will develop a core knowledge of facts, locations, and key vocabulary balanced with a sense of place and their own, personal geography. They have opportunities to explore Kesgrave and Suffolk and understand their importance within the local, national and international context. Through geographical enquiry, children ask investigative questions to challenge the sources of knowledge, reflect on what they have found, and evaluate materials to form an opinion. Through first-hand experience of fieldwork, observation and high-quality teaching with the use of a variety of resources (such as, atlases, globes, compasses and ICT), children begin to understand their role in the world. Through geography, we can begin to educate the future generation to think and act as responsible geographers and to become climate ambassadors. 

• Geography Progression Map 

Geography Learning Threads

We have developed our learning threads to create 'journeys of learning' that run throughout the school. The threads center around local and global themes to provide relevance and context to the children's learning and help to weave together content from across the different subjects in the curriculum. The learning builds upon what the children have learnt previously in the school, enabling the children to gain a deeper understanding of the content. 

• Global Challenges
• Settlements
• Farming and Agriculture
• Planet Earth

Our Approach to Geography

• Our geography units begin with a focus on locational knowledge. A 'zoomed out' map is used to gain an understanding of the locational of the place being studied in relation to Kesgrave/UK along with other locations studied previously. 'Zoomed in' maps are used to gain an understanding of a locational in a more local context. A range of maps are used and relationships between locations are explored.
• The children then develop their understanding through place knowledge. This allows the children to explore features such as language, culture and religion and make comparisons (where appropriate) to our local area.
• From here, the children take part in an in depth study of an area, with a particular focus on human and/or physical features; how physical and human processes interact and the impact on a local, national and global level; and how global challenges are impacting the area.
• The children gain an understanding of the work of geographers through the development of skills, including map work and fieldwork.
• There is a chance to implement the skills learned through fieldwork, including asking and investigating questions, recording findings, drawing conclusions and reflecting/evaluating.
  
  
• Key questions are used to provide focus and depth to the learning.
• Knowledge organisers, knowledge maps and low stake quizzes are used to help embed the knowledge learned into the long term memory.