At Peninsula East Primary Academy, we believe that our children foster positive and enthusiastic opinions of the past through the philosophy of the International Baccalaureate. They are able to form meaningful and significant opinions of the world around them, that is a direct result of decisions and events that have taken place to make the world the way it is today. We are confident that our children should be able to understand key historical events and can understand the place of such occasions in chronological order. It is a fundamental skill that our children have to be able to understand how the past has impacted the modern world.
As they progress through the school, our children will continuously develop and build upon key skills that will enable them to become global citizens. They will evolve their understanding of historical events in a local and global context with an understanding of how they have instigated social change and movement, with a focus on diversity and how this has been challenged and embraced through history; thus building and developing our children’s understanding of the world around them and how they are and will continue to be active participants as part of the modern world and how the history we inquire about also contributes to their lives.
The Geography inquiries at Peninsula East Primary Academy focus on a high-quality offer that inspires, motivates and encourages a curiosity about the world. We have a carefully planned curriculum to ensure that we are teaching Geography in a well-sequenced and considered manner. By carefully planning the curriculum, our school teaches Geography in a progressive way by beginning with developing a basic contextual understanding of the world, United Kingdom and their local area in EYFS and KS1. This consolidated knowledge then provides strong foundations for further geographical inquiry and progression into KS2, exploring beyond the local area to include: Europe, North and South America. By teaching in this way, we can be confident that children are able to recall previous learning to inform their new inquiries, whilst also forming connections, new ideas and opinions. Our children will have access to high- quality learning opportunities that will enable them to broaden their understanding of the world around them, ensuring that their cultural capital is consistently enhanced and extended during their years at Peninsula East Primary Academy.
Our digital strategy ensures that children achieve and move beyond traditional methods of learning by using various platforms, such as Google Earth, to enhance their knowledge of locations, place, human and physical geography and fieldwork. Where possible, we encourage transdisciplinary learning between other social study subjects to create opportunities to blend learning creating tangible and memorable learning that is secure enough to manipulate and apply to other areas of their learning experiences.
Evidence of our broad curriculum is shown in children’s inquiry books that reflect the learning opportunities that the children experience, this showcases the deep level understanding that the children possess of the key skills and knowledge of modern geographers. Throughout the lessons, assessment of knowledge is continuously occurring to ensure learning within the lesson is secure and they are achieving the end points that have been set out for them.
We continuously assess the impact of Geography for our children using a variety of means that is accommodating for all learners. We use our quantitative data of formal assessments, both formative and summative and assessment for learning but we also continue to develop our knowledge of the children’s understanding by observing engagement, the way children talk about their learning and the work that they produce, all of which is underpinned by a Foundation Subject Tracker.
By the time our children leave us in Year 6, we expect them to:
- Possess a secure knowledge of the location of globally significant places and to be able to explain the significance of their characteristics – including their defining physical and human characteristics.
- Be able to analyse data by forming opinions and well-founded conclusions based on the information gathered through fieldwork and to confidently share their findings with their peers.
- Be able to interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including traditional methods of OS maps, diagrams, and aerial photographs but also to use more modern methods such as Google Maps and Google Earth.
- Understand the processes that can give rise to key physical and human features of the world.
- Have a confident understanding of the world and the influencing factors that can affect the makeup of different cities and countries.
- Feel a strong enthusiasm for Geography and to understand the significance of learning about the different features of the world and their processes but also to appreciate their active role within our world.