Great Tey Primary
SchoolGeography
Our geography curriculum is based on the National Curriculum, and aims to help pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of the geography of Britain and that of the wider world. Our geography curriculum aims to inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about their local area and the wider world, ask perceptive questions, think critically, value diversity, and develop perspective and judgement. Geography helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, human and social processes, the diversity of the natural world and the impact of human processes on the natural world.
In 2019, we purchased the Cornerstones Curriculum as the basis of our geography curriculum in order to ensure we fully cover all of the requirements of the National Curriculum and to provide a means of assessing children's confidence and learning. We adapt this curriculum to our school by taking every opportunity to learn about the geography of our local area, including the farming land-use of Great Tey and land uses around Colchester, and by using trips, visits and special days to develop children's love of geography.
Please read on below to find more information on what we teach, how we teach it and how we ensure we are creating geographers of the future!
Why do we learn geography?
We are creating future geographers by ....
- developing children's interest in, and curiosity about, the world around them and its diversity
- developing children's knowledge and interest in their local area
- ensuring children have opportunities to ask and answer questions about their world through exploring, observing, comparing and evaluating
- revisiting key skills and knowledge across the primary years to ensure children's understanding of geography is embedded and built upon
- equipping children with the knowledge of different cultures and countries they need to understand and value diversity
- developing children's ability to ask questions, interpret the evidence, make judgements and state their viewpoints with increasing clarity and confidence
- introducing children to the wide range of jobs geographers can do and nurturing their ambitions to work in geography-based jobs in the future, contributing to their communities and the wider world
What do we learn?
Whole School Curriculum Map
Our Whole School Curriculum Map for Geography can be found here: Year A Year B. It shows how different skills will be developed over your child's time at Great Tey.
(To decide which year we are in, A or B, years starting in an 'odd' year - September 2023, 2025 etc. - are Year A, years beginning in an 'even' year - September 2022, 2024 etc. - are Year B.)
Class Maps
Please see below for our Class Maps, which give further information on skills development in your child's class through our Cornerstones topics.
Click on your child's class below for Geography Cycle A covering the year 2023-2024
Ducklings (Blocks A and B are the same for Reception)
Click on your child's class below for Geography Cycle B covering the year 2022-2023 / 2024-2025
Ducklings (Blocks A and B are the same for Reception)
What does our learning in geography help us to do?
- develop our understanding of the world around us
- ask and answer questions, developing our ability to ask questions of increasing relevance
- develop our vocabulary to report our findings with increasing clarity, to answer questions and to make comparisons
- read maps, atlases and globes with increasing accuracy
- name and locate the main continents, countries, oceans and cities of the world
- understand human land-use and its impact on the natural world
- make connections between our lives and lives of people in different countries or cultures
- prepare for our future, whether working in a geography-based career or continuing to develop our interest in the world around us through reading and travel.