Geography at Pitmaston

At Pitmaston Primary School, we recognise the importance of Geography to enable pupils to understand the relationships between places, the human and physical processes that shape them, and the people who live in them. Many of the pupils who now attend our school will live to see the next century and inhabit a world of eleven billion people. The many opportunities and challenges that will arise during their lifetime will be very much about geography – personal, local, national and global, our pupils will need to know about geography and to think like geographers. Through our school values –Enjoy, Aspire and Achieve – we ensure that the wellbeing of all members of the school community is at the centre of our life in school and the key to raising academic success.

Our principle aims for Geography are underpinned by our five bespoke schemas: Sustainability, Enterprise, Human and Physical Geography, Location and Civilisation and Culture. These have been carefully designed in order to give our pupils at Pitmaston Primary School, a broad awareness and understanding of the world in which they live. Click here to see examples of our learning logs linked to sustainability.

Through these schemas and our intentionally progressive curriculum, we aim to:

  • stimulate pupils’ interest in their surroundings and in the variety of human and physical conditions on the Earth’s surface.
  • foster pupils’ sense of wonder at the beauty of the world around them.
  • help pupils to develop an informed concern about the quality of the environment and the future of the human habitat.
  • enhance pupils’ sense of responsibility for the care of the Earth and its people.
  • help build our pupil’s cultural capital through fostering a sense of understanding about how all peoples and communities around the world are interconnected and interdependent with each other.

We believe that Geographers should make links and connections between the natural world and human activity, pose questions and provide answers about the world we live in. We strongly believe that in line with the statutory requirements of the national curriculum for Geography, Pitmaston commits to ensuring that every pupil at every stage of learning has regular and appropriately challenging and engaging learning in geography. In addition, we ensure that what our pupils learn in geography and how they learn it, not only inspires and challenges them intellectually but also contributes to their spiritual, moral, cultural and physical development and helps to prepare them for the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life in an increasingly globalised world.

The Geography curriculum enables our pupils to develop substantive and disciplinary knowledge and progressive skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas. We have developed our curriculum so that it is designed to support children with retention of subject knowledge embedding key learning into their long term memory. Our aim is to allow pupils to know more, remember more, and understand more. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives; to promote the pupils’ interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. Our Diversity Committee have supported changes to the curriculum ensuring that we deliver a bespoke curriculum that ensures our children develop a sense of curiosity and respect of the diverse world in which they live in.

In order to foster pupils’ curiosity about the world, we are enthusiastic about Geography and encourage children to explore and ask questions. To ensure a broad coverage of the curriculum and progression of skills, Geography is taught through the following key areas:

  • Locational Knowledge
  • Geographical Enquiry
  • Human and Physical Geography
  • Geographical skills and fieldwork

Our school curriculum maps provide detail of each year group’s topic, and when these are taught. Teachers plan lessons for their class using our progression of knowledge and skills document. The progression document ensures the curriculum is covered and the skills/knowledge taught is progressive starting in the EYFS. Pupils will access a range of resources to acquire learning through atlases, maps, digital technology including the use of Digimap, books, geographical information systems (GIS) and photographs. Digimap, Google Earth and satellite views are often used to further enhance the lessons, drawing on real-life contexts whilst further supporting the children’s locational understanding and knowledge. Using a range of secondary resources to develop their knowledge and understanding is integral to their learning.

We provide a variety of opportunities for Geography learning inside and outside the classroom. Educational visits are an integral part of our curriculum design. They provide additional opportunities for the children to experience fieldwork first hand, bringing classroom theory to life. Our pupils have the opportunity to explore areas within the locality of their school, as well as locations further afield, enabling them to be able to compare locations around the world.