At St. Mary’s Catholic Primary School, Geography will be fully inclusive of every child.  Our aims are to teach the skills and knowledge required to meet the aims of the National Curriculum.  This allows for a broader, deeper understanding of locational and place knowledge, human and physical geography and geography fieldwork and skills.  Our curriculum will develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places and understanding of the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, along with how they bring about variation and change over time.

It is our intent to:

• Develop children’s curiosity and a fascination of the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. 
• Improve children’s geographical vocabulary, map skills and geographical facts.
• Provide opportunities for consolidation, challenge and variety to ensure interest and progress in the subject.

To ensure high standards of teaching and learning in geography, the key knowledge and skills of each topic have been identified and consideration has been given to ensure progression across topics throughout each year group.  Geography is taught as part of a termly topic, focusing on knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum.  Through revisiting and consolidating skills, our curriculum helps children build on prior knowledge alongside introducing new skills and challenge.  At the beginning of each topic, children are able to convey what they know already as well as what they would like to find out.  This informs the planning and ensures that lessons are relevant and take account of children’s different starting points.  Consideration is given to how the wide range of abilities will be catered for within each lesson, as well as how learners will be supported as part of the school’s commitment to inclusion.  All children expand on their skills in local knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, geographical skills and fieldwork.  

Within Geography, we strive to create a supportive and collaborative ethos for learning.  The key knowledge and skills of each topic have been identified and consideration has been given to ensure progression across topics throughout each phase across the school.  Children will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and how this affects landscapes and environments.

We measure the impact of our curriculum through the following methods:

• Assessing children’s understanding of topic linked vocabulary before and after the unit is taught.
• Summative assessment of pupil discussions about their learning.
• Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.                      
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice).
• Annual reporting of standards across the curriculum.
• Marking of written work in books.