Geography
Our aims
At Scotton Lingerfield Primary School, we want children to be curious about the world and the people who live in it. Our geography curriculum helps them understand different places, landscapes and environments, and explore how people and the natural world influence one another.
Our rural North Yorkshire setting provides a starting point for learning about our local area. From here, children broaden their knowledge of the United Kingdom and the wider world, discovering similarities, differences and connections between places.
We want children to ask thoughtful questions about the world around them. Through studying issues such as recycling, energy, climate change and trade, they consider how people’s choices affect places and environments, both locally and globally.
How we teach geography
Geography is taught in blocks through a two-year rolling programme for our mixed-age classes. We use the Learning Challenge curriculum as a basis for planning. Each unit is organised around an enquiry question, giving children a clear focus for exploring geographical ideas and developing their understanding.
Our curriculum brings together knowledge of locations and places, human and physical geography, and geographical skills and fieldwork. Children learn where places are, what they are like, how they change and how they are connected.
Our whole-school curriculum drivers of global, cultural and environmental awareness shape the places and questions we explore. Recurring concepts—including mapping, the natural environment, settlements, trade, climate and the local area—help children connect their learning across units.
Our progression documents set out how this learning builds from Reception to Year 6. Important knowledge, vocabulary and skills are revisited in different contexts, helping children make connections and apply what they already know to new enquiries.
Maps, atlases, globes, photographs and digital resources help children investigate places at different scales. Fieldwork gives them opportunities to observe their surroundings, collect information and use evidence to answer questions. As they move through school, children become increasingly independent in interpreting information and explaining their findings.
Children communicate their understanding through discussion, presentations, maps, data and writing. Teachers adapt resources and support, including vocabulary and map-reading guidance, to help all children take part in geographical enquiry.
Building knowledge and skills across ages and stages
In Reception, children begin with their immediate surroundings and the people who help them at home, at school and in the community. They explore familiar places, notice features of their environment and use simple positional language. Photographs, stories and maps introduce places beyond their own experience, including hot and cold environments. Children begin to recognise and create simple representations of familiar places, ask questions and gather information through activities such as counting and sorting.
In Years 1 and 2, children develop their knowledge of the local area, the countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom, and the world’s continents and oceans. They compare their surroundings with coastal places and a location in Kenya, and investigate why some parts of the world are hotter or colder than others. Learning about recycling and transport introduces ways people use and care for their environment. Children use simple compass directions, recognise human and physical features, draw basic maps with symbols and keys, and present information using tally charts, pictograms and tables.
In Years 3 and 4, children extend their knowledge of the United Kingdom and Europe and begin to explain the processes that shape landscapes. They investigate mountains, earthquakes, volcanoes, rivers and biomes, alongside questions about energy and tourism in the Mediterranean. Mapwork develops through using eight compass points, coordinates and maps at different scales. Children produce more detailed sketches and annotated maps, interpret geographical data and begin to consider the reliability of information. They learn to connect their observations with conclusions and recognise that evidence may change their initial ideas.
In Years 5 and 6, children explore more complex relationships between people, places and environments. Their studies include South America, climate change, Fairtrade, changing settlements and migration to Britain. They consider how resources, trade and human activity connect different parts of the world. Mapwork becomes more precise through four- and six-figure grid references, latitude and longitude, digital mapping and an understanding of time zones. Children interpret a wider range of data, consider reliability and bias, and select evidence to support their conclusions. Their enquiries increasingly lead them to identify further questions to investigate.
Learning to think geographically
Throughout school, children develop the vocabulary to describe places accurately, explain processes and discuss geographical issues. They learn to look closely, compare information and ask why patterns and differences exist.
Fieldwork and enquiry develop alongside children’s geographical knowledge. Early observations and simple maps provide the foundations for more detailed investigations, increasingly accurate recording and thoughtful evaluation of evidence.
By the end of Year 6, we want children to have a secure understanding of the world beyond their immediate experience, the skills to investigate geographical questions and an appreciation of their own role in caring for the world they share.
