Geography

Intent

At Wistaston Church Lane Academy, we EXPLORE like a geographer! 

We believe that geographical learning should nurture and encourage children’s natural curiosity and should shape the children into inquisitive learners who are keen to explore the world around them. Therefore, our Geography curriculum is designed to develop children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.

Throughout their geography education, our children will develop and build on their knowledge and understanding of locations and places around the world, people, resources and natural and human environments. Children will also have the opportunities to investigate a range of places – both in Britain and abroad – to help develop their knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s physical and human processes.

We are committed to providing children with opportunities to investigate and make enquiries about their local area of Wistaston, and Cheshire, so that they can develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes our local area unique and special. Children are also taught how to use and apply geographical skills as a means to effectively communicate their geographical findings to a range of audiences.

Implementation

At Wistaston Church Lane, we follow the National Curriculum programme of study for Geography, with units of work being taught as part of a cross curricular approach that can be integrated into learning across different subject areas. As part of the planning process, teachers are expected to include the following:

• A warm up task that is set at the beginning of each unit of work. This task will identify the children’s current knowledge and provide a baseline for end of unit assessment.
• A vocabulary lesson/activity that introduces topic specific terms. (New vocabulary can be added throughout the unit of work)
• A cycle of lessons, which plans for progression and deeper understanding of the geographical skills covered.
• Opportunities for children to work practically as a means to illustrate geographical knowledge.
• A hot task (this can be the same as the warm up task) which is used to highlight progression of skills at the end of a taught unit.

Children are assessed against the National Curriculum aims as set out in the Geography programmes of study. 

Impact

At Wistaston Church Lane Academy it is expected that all geography lessons are engaging and that all learning is inclusive to ensure children make good progress.

• Through high quality teaching, we develop the following essential characteristics of geographers: Children are happy learners within Geography. They experience a wide range of learning challenges within the subject and know appropriate responses to them, such as informed choices regarding current environmental issues e.g. limiting the use of plastics.
• Through Geography, children deepen their appreciation of the role they play in looking after and protecting the world they live in.
• Visits and residentials throughout school (for example, Delamere and York) have enriched the lives of the children and provide them with opportunities to discuss and reflect on how the experience impacted their knowledge and understanding.
• Children of all abilities and backgrounds achieve well in Geography which is reflected through a consistent learning journey and clear progress.       

Cultural Capital

Throughout their time at WCLA, we aim for children to develop the following characteristics of geographers:

• develop and build on their knowledge and understanding of locations and places
• investigate a range of places, both in the UK and abroad
• investigate and make enquiries about their local area of Wistaston, and Cheshire
• develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes where we live unique and special
• listen to and interact with stories that reflect different places and cultures
• participate in activities where they will need to use their geographical knowledge and understanding to make inferences about place, space and scale
• be given opportunities to ask and answer geographical questions