GEOGRAPHY
Geography:
Our Vision: Here at Victoria Park, we aim to provide each child with a rich and stimulating Geography Curriculum that starts with investigating the local area and surroundings in Reception and culminates in being able to compare and contrast the cultures and everyday life of our own country to others around the world by the end of Key Stage Two.
What we teach: Aligned to the National Curriculum and arranged into termly Challenge Packs, our Geography topics and themes include map reading skills, using research-based evidence to develop children’s knowledge of the world and the issues that face us, to fieldwork opportunities in the local and wider area. These provide a genuine performance ‘purpose’ for learning and we believe, develops Geographical knowledge.
What learning looks like: Topics vary throughout the school and learning is supported by a vast range of resources including globes, large display world maps, Geographical books, including maps and atlases and key Geographical vocabulary displayed on the NICER working wall.
The learning of Geographical themes builds over time and the children are given the opportunity to recap their prior learning in order to build stronger foundations and deeper understandings of Geography and what it includes.
Some of the learning that we’re very proud of includes:
· Yr 1, the local community compared with a non- EU country, children will go for a walk in their local community, where they will explore the geographical features around them and compare them to another country through media. They also look at how communities can connect from far away.
· Yr 2, Countries in the UK and their flags, capital cities and the landmarks and the Seas and Oceans around the UK, and Countries in Europe. Children have access to class resources that enable them to best achieve their learning objective and to make for a memorable learning experience. Children also have the opportunity in this year group to visit a farm where they get to see how different the countryside is from the area they live in.
· Yr 3 Continents of the world are explored and some countries and capital cities in Europe are compared to some in North America and South America. Children will look at cultures and foods and compare the physical and Geographical features between their home country and those in North and South America. At this stage, children will be able to identify those specific continents and some of their countries on a globe and in an Atlas.
· Yr 4 Locate local health and fitness amenities and make comparisons between human and physical Geographical features of the surrounding area, they will do this through identifying sites locally on ordinate survey maps and aerial photographs and may have the opportunity to identify certain locations in relation to where they live and where they go to school in person.
· Yr 5 Climate change, the causes and effect of this on the world and how the Amazon plays a major role in this. Children will handle data where they will compare the rainfall in the Amazon to their local City. They will discuss issues stemming from their local community
that may contribute to this and they will develop an understanding of how they themselves can make small changes in order to tackle the ever-growing problem of climate change.
· Yr 6 Conflicts and where they have been located throughout history, the children examine why certain regions of the world are prone to having more episodes of conflict. They also have the opportunity to compare their local community to one in the Caribbean during their final challenge pack ‘Ballot Street Spice’.
Added extras: We want our children to experience a broad Geography curriculum, this is why across the school, throughout the year we have many fantastic, immersive opportunities from a day at the beach for year 1, where they will visit Weston-Super-Mare to experience beach life compared to their inner city lives. Year 2 have a trip to East Midlands Airport, where we give the children the chance for full size role play, where they get to board a real plane. Year 3 have the opportunity to experience a catastrophe through virtual reality, while year 4 have a visit from a personal trainer who shows them exercises they could do to stay healthy, in their local community. Year 5 get to visit a real-life rainforest environment at the Butterfly Farm in Stratford and the children in year 6 get to finish their last term at Victoria Park Academy by investigating spices and foods from their local area and from the Caribbean through the school’s social enterprising scheme.
