Intent

At Chigwell Row our curriculum is designed to inspire children’s fascination about the world around them—both local and further afield—that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.  We aim to foster and develop  children’s curiosity about the world and everything in it and to enable them to ask and answer questions about the world. We aim for children to develop a secure knowledge of where places are located, what they are like, and what happens there. We are committed to providing children with opportunities to investigate and make enquiries about their local area of Epping Forest to develop fieldwork skills and experience and describe human and physical geographical features. We  aim to develop the children’s ability to apply geographical skills to enable them to confidently communicate their findings and geographical understanding.

Implementation

In the Early Years children are taught through the Early Years Curriculum: Understanding the World.  Children think about different people and communities, and their place within these. Through trips to the local area, children also experience the natural world around them, and through adult questioning are encouraged to describe their observations. Linked to their current topic and text, as well as calendar dates, children also celebrate different places, cultures and festivals both locally and in the wider world throughout the school year. Cross-curricular links are made to their personal, social and emotional development by thinking about the perspective of others within their community, as well as links to scientific topics such as the changing of the seasons and the habitats of animals. 

In KS1 we follow the Collins Connect Geography Scheme which has been adapted to suit our rolling curriculum with a Year A and B cycle. This ensures the curriculum is covered at the end of Key Stage one, without repeating any topics. Each topic is taught through an enquiry question, which is broken down into individual questions for each weekly lesson. Geography is taught once a term, over a half term period. This ensures the children have enough time to explore the question thoroughly, deepen their learning and develop their enthusiasm and curiosity. We look for cross curricular opportunities where possible for example our Geography topic ‘ Why do we like being beside the seaside so much?’ is linked with our English texts about the seaside and links with the music topic ‘body and vocal sounds: under the sea’. 

Additional opportunities in geography are provided through workshops, educational visits and regular visits to the local forest.   The use of Hainault Forest (located directly across from the school) allows for first hand experiences.    

Impact:

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 as well as during the lessons. 
• Marking of work in books (plans, diagrams, evaluations) 
•  Images and videos of the children’s practical learning.
• Interviewing the pupils about their learning (pupil voice)

• Low stake quizzes within lessons
• Adult questioning and prompting
• Observations of the pupils’ abilities during the creation of different projects

 Our Geography Topic Map

geography topic overview template.pdf