Geography

Purpose and Aims

Purpose

For pupils to gain a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. The pupils should gain a growing knowledge about the world; deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills provide the frameworks and approaches that explain how the Earth’s features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change over time.

Aims

• To investigate places locally , nationally or internationally
• To investigate patterns of physical geography
• To communicate using the language of Geographers when discussing physical and human geography.

Provision

Our curriculum is categorised in 2 ways

• Breadth - which gives pupils experiences of a range of historical figures and periods
• Depth - which helps pupils to think and act like geographers

Whilst coverage is our goal for the “breadth” element, repetition and increasing the understanding is our goal for the “depth” element.

Our curriculum drivers shape our approach to teaching geography so that every opportunity is taken to relate geography to the needs of our pupils. Geography is studied throughout each academic year and across each key stage so that pupils can gain a growing developmental understanding of the matters, skills and processes in our curriculum. Coherent contexts for learning engage ad involve pupil.

Progression and Assessment

Our progression has 3 key objectives which mirror the 3 aims of the subject. We set out our expectations around Chris Quigley Essentials “mile stones” approach. Each milestone has a set of indicators that re repeated throughout 3 cognitive domains: Basic (We call it Paddling), Advancing (we call in snorkelling) and Deep (we call it diving). It is expected that the vast majority of pupils will have an advancing understanding by the end of the milestone and some will have a deep understanding.

Assessment and reporting

We will assess the pupil’s depth of understanding each term and use this to forecast as to whether pupils are on track to meet our curriculum expectations for the end of the milestone.

Monitoring, Evaluation and Improvements

The role of the leader in monitoring pupil’s outcomes is to audit teacher’s judgements. This is done collectively in staff meetings and then collated by the leader. The leader then works collectively with the teachers to examine the strengths of the provision along with the areas for development for the provision. The leaders then create an action plan to improve achievement. The leader keeps track of the improvements they have secured over time to understand how effect the provision is.

Year 5 Dahl Class, Contour Lines

Dahl class have had a great geography lesson today creating our own contour lines model.

Year 1 Elmer Class, Learning the Continents

Elmer class love learning the names of the continents using this song

Year 3 Potter Class, Formation of Rivers

In geography, we have used drama to explore how rivers are formed.

Year 3 Potter Class, Europe

In Geography, we have continued to investigate Europe and learn about the human and physical features. Both at home and at school, the children chose a country to research and find out about their features. In school, we looked at a range of pictures from across Europe and sorted them into human and physical feature; discussing rivers and mountains as well as man-made landmarks. We then started our research, each choosing a different country from a across the continent. Children at home created some fantastic fact files with their research. 

Moomin, Reenacting the Titanic

A ghastly event has taken place in Year 2 Moomin class. Whilst the passengers aboard the Titanic were asleep the ship hit an iceberg! Women, children and some men in first class were saved but sadly had to watch the Captain, family and friends go down with the ship!

Elmer, The Titanic

As historians, Elmer pretended to be on board the Titanic.  They each had a ticket which showed which class of passenger they were.  Some of the children were allowed to go on the lifeboats, others had to wait.  Unfortunately, we ran out of lifeboats! They then used their role play to write diary entries.

Whole School Remembrance Day

As a school, we pride ourselves in taking time each year to remember those who we have lost in the war. Mrs Davies, usually, invites a range of visitors into assembly to discuss the impact of the past wars and we take part in a range of activities to mark this time of year.

This year, whilst it was different, we still marked the occasion with an outdoor, socially-distanced assembly and invited the local reverend in to lead us in a reflection.

Each class created a wreath to lay in the centre of playground during the assembly and took part in an online podcast assembly discussing the symbolism of the poppy. Did you know the poppy was first worn by a lady called Moina Michael?

Key Stage 1, History off the page – The Great Fire of London

Key Stage One had some exciting visitors from History Off the Page linked to their unit Great and Ghastly Events. Children were immersed into life in 1666 right from the moment they stepped in the door dressed in typical clothing from the era. Children learnt historical skills of looking for evidence in the rubble left by the Great Fire and undertook typical jobs of the period, including baking bread and sewing.

Elmer Class create a map of Harpenden Common in Forest School

This week at Forest School, Elmer class were challenged with making a map of Harpenden Common. They had to use different map symbols and think about it    using perspective. Children worked in groups, exploring the area and noting it on their map. Each group showed great team work skills and lots of knowledge of their local area. We are looking forward to learning how to read maps next.

London Eye, Year 3 School Trip

Year 6 Food Tasting

Look what recipes we made from The Americas 

     

Year 6 Local Walk 

Year 6 went on a local walk to identify local environmental issues and solutions to these problems (both existing and potential solutions). We were delighted to discover that there were more than fifteen litter bins within two blocks of school. However, we were disappointed to note that there are far more cars than bikes due to a lack of safe cycle paths. We will be linking our learning to a climate change project over the next few weeks, culminating in the St Albans sustainability week in April. Thank you to Josie and Chloe’s mums for coming along and helping out.

Going Global 

This week the children have been having a fabulous time learning about different continents around the world. Thank you to all the parents who have been in to school to share their experiences of living in a different county and continent. Example of the work will be displayed in the hall next week. In fact the children have had such a terrific time they have asked to have another ‘Going Global’ next year...we will see what we can do!

Below are some photos from the week with comments from the children:

What an exciting week we  had 'down under' in Aslan class! We  created our own aboriginal art and written instructions; performed the Haka (the children were very scary); created detailed sketches of the Sydney Opera House and discussed a range of stories from Australia and New Zealand. Thank you to Max's mum who came in and discussed her experience, the children loved learning about the different animals. Thank you to all the parents who shared their precious resources from their travels; we have had engaging and informative show and tell sessions this week using them.

Year 3 Japan

Year 3 Kipling/Potter have been focusing on Japan as our Continent was Asia— we did origami and wrote instructions on how we made them. We also looked at the Japanese Artist Hokusai and we did landscapes of Japan in a similar style.

Year 4 Mexico

Mr Sanchez visited Year 4, Austen class, to talk about his time working in Mexico in the jungle. Mr Sanchez worked on a project in several natural gas processing plants scattered in the Mexican jungles. During that time he got some exposure to local customs, the food, the animals (alligators, big snakes, vultures, ... ), the weather (amazing rainstorms, it was the Katrina year), the pyramids in the jungle ...; and he got a share of Mexican life that's usually not available to tourists.

What an opportunity for the class to learn about Mexico!

Year 6 Europe

This week Year 6 have been learning all about Europe and highlights have included: researching and writing non-chronological reports about a European country (with a focus on conflict as this is our current topic); preparing/buying European food for a food fest on Wednesday afternoon; and researching and writing instructions for a European playground - to be shared with the rest of school over the coming weeks.

Ladybirds - Lost and Found

Ladybirds have been reading Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. Linked to this story, we researched penguins found in Antarctica.

North America 

Year 6 kicked off their study of North American with a cookery session- blending the two of the most popular dishes of USA (apple pie) and Mexico (empanadas) to create their own unique apple empanadas with home made pastry. Yum!