Kelly Leach

Geography Co-ordinator

kleach@chaddlewoodschool.org.uk

 

'A Chaddlewood geographer will have an understanding of themselves in relation to their locality and the world beyond and have the geographical skills, knowledge questioning ability and understanding to describe and explain the world around them and how it evolved.'

 

 How is geography planned at Chaddlewood in KS1 and Year 6? 

 Geography is planned to explore a main question or statement, which is developed from the subject content detailed in the National Curriculum as assigned to each key stage. Each lesson focuses on a key question or statement, which is designed to piece together the answer to the main question.

   Questions or statements are formed from the key concepts (disciplinary knowledge) and the substantive themes (substantive knowledge) that have been identified as integral to understanding history and are used as longitudinal threads to build substantive understanding across year groups and topics. Our teaching and curriculum design reflect the relationship between substantive and disciplinary knowledge. Learning activities have been developed collaboratively to ensure effective progression of knowledge. 

How do we ensure that the curriculum will reinforce the disciplinary concepts so that pupils remember more in the long term? 

 Knowledge is taught to be remembered, not merely encountered; therefore, we begin each unit by exploring a main question. We then use key questions or statements, which will be explored in lessons, to develop the answer to the main question or statement.

How do we check that pupils have understood before we move on? 

 Assessments are made formatively and summatively in all year groups. Synoptic tasks are used in KS2 and in KS1, the pupils complete an end of unit assessment task.  These are a culmination of learning throughout each sequence.

How is geography planned at Chaddlewood in KS2? 

 In KS2 we use the Opening Worlds Humanities Scheme to teach geography, history and RE.

The programme meets and substantially exceeds the demand of the National Curriculum for history and geography. The programme is characterised by strong vertical sequencing within subjects (so that pupils gain security in a rich, broad vocabulary through systematic introduction, sustained practice and deliberate revisiting) and by intricate horizontal and diagonal connections, thus creating a curriculum whose effects are far greater than the sum of their parts.

 In this curriculum, selected content is woven together through important geographical themes (such as settlement, rivers, sustainability) with place studies (such as North Wales, UK, South America) and case studies (such as deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest) to give a comprehensive grounding in geography.  It meets and exceeds geography requirements in the National Curriculum for England and provides an excellent foundation for Key Stage 3 and GCSE. The overall goal in the Opening Worlds curricula is broad, thorough, diverse and coherent knowledge, so that by the end of their schooling, all pupils can orient themselves in the world. Simply to master a really broad, rich, coherent and rigorous curriculum, is to make progress. There is no ‘progression model’ that needs to be imposed on top.

The curriculum map for 2024-25 is:

Substantive Knowledge

The substantive content is the knowledge the pupils learn in each subject and is mapped out across Years 3,5 and 5. It is ambitious, rigorous, coherent and carefully sequenced.  

History is taught chronologically whereas geography is taught and sequenced using a variety of strands: breadth, depth, concrete and abstract, familiar and unfamiliar, connections, vocabulary and geographical skills.

Disciplinary Concepts

The disciplinary concepts of geography and history are taught by embedding them in the questions asked in the synoptic tasks (assessment tasks) for each module. In addition, other disciplinary ideas are embedded in the substantive content of the topic booklets such as:

• Accounts of historians and archaeologists solving problems

• Examples of primary resources and the challenges of their interpretation

• Tentative judgements are offered, such as judgements about how much something has changed.

• The modelling of disciplinary rigour through the language of certainty and uncertainty, through the connection of words and through the language of inference.