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Geography

Geography Vision 

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To develop pupils’ geographical skills, knowledge and enquiry and for pupils' to understand the similarities and differences between localities, both locally and in the wider world, and the affect this has on the humans that live there.

We teach a broad and varied Geography curriculum, at South Hill, which aims to develop skills and knowledge through four main areas:

  • Geographical Enquiry: Geographical enquiry focuses on pupils asking questions about the world in which they live and answering these by: making observations, exploring similarities and differences and using a variety of sources to collect and analyse data .

  • Geographical Knowledge: Geographical knowledge focuses on children building their knowledge of the world in which they live, year by year, and retaining this information as they progress through the school. This will include place and location knowledge:

    • Place Knowledge: what it is like, such as hot, cold, urban, or country

    • Location Knowledge: where it is, such as the city, state, or country, coordinates

  • Physical Geography: Physical geography focuses on things on the earth that have occurred naturally. It focuses on the natural earth and how this can affect the world we live in.

  • Human Geography: Human geography focuses on where people live, what they do, and how they use the land. It focuses on human activity and how humans can affect the world in which we live.

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GOLDEN THREADS

As part of our Geography curriculum, we have carefully mapped out 8 'Golden Threads' which allow us to build on previous knowledge and to make links between what we have already learnt and what we are learning now and in the future: 

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Please see our ‘Long term plan’, which carefully maps out the learning objectives for each year group as well as topics of study, such as ‘Biomes’ in Year 6 and ‘Towns and Villages’ in Year 1.

 

By the end of Year 6, we want our pupils to:

  • Have developed their basic geographical skills, knowledge and enquiry and for pupils' to understand the similarities and differences between localities, both locally and in the wider world (Physical Geography), and the affect this has on the humans that live there (Human Geography).

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Our Curriculum

We have tailored our Geography curriculum, in some areas, to reflect our locality and local community so that our pupils have a real sense of the geography of our town, Hemel Hempstead.  

 

For example: 

  • In EYFS, we focus on the building blocks to our Geography by beginning to study the natural world around us, including our local area

  • In Year 1, we compare our town to a local village and study the similarities and differences

  • In Year 2, we compare our town to a coastal town and study the similarities and differences

  • In Year 3, we compare our town (which was traditionally a waterway) to Venice

  • In Year 4, we study Hemel Hempstead through local environmental issues and think about the impact we can have

  • In Year 5, we focus on fieldwork to collect information and map the land use of our town

  • In Year 6, we continue our fieldwork and local area study by looking at Ordnance survey maps

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Examples of knowledge organisers

Trips, hooks and theme days

Our Geography curriculum is enriched by a number of school trips, theme days and assemblies and these provide excellent opportunities to bring our geographical learning to life. Examples are:

  • EYFS: Local walk, including an introduction to maps

  • Year 2: Local walk to think about what we like and dislike about our town and how we could improve it

  • Year 3: Visit from ‘One Day Creative’ to study Volcanoes

  • Year 4: Local walk to think about local environmental issues and how we can impact these

  • Year 5: Local walk to study our local river, ‘The River Gade’

  • Year 6: Local walk to use Ordnance survey maps and to collect data and information about our town

 

International Day (please see the ‘International Day’ section of our website

Each year at South Hill School, we celebrate 'International Day'. Each class chooses a country from around the world which is also representative of our South Hill communities. For that day, year groups represent and learn more about their chosen country and can wear clothes from their celebrated country or colours of the flag.

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Puplis learn about the geography of their chosen country and where to locate the country on a map, what continent the country is part of and what countries are nearby, we might learn about famous buildings and landmarks.

 

Pupil Voice

I like geography because we look at maps and we have used the globe to find where we live. It was fun - Ciel Year 1

 

I liked the walk around our local area to look at where we live - Helena Year 1

 

I like geography because we learn about the different countries around the world, we learnt about Barbados - Enal Year 2

 

I like learning about where I live and how I can keep looking after my local area. I enjoyed comparing Hemel Hempstead to a village near to where I live - Freddie Year 5 

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