Intent:

At Wrestlingworth and Dunton Federation we intend for children to develop as global citizens through a growing understanding of the wider world community in which they are living and our impact on our environment. Our curriculum should inspire pupils’ curiosity to know more about the world. Teaching should equip pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement. Our geography curriculum equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people and environments. Teaching should equip children with powerful knowledge about the world around them and help them to develop a love for the subject of geography, and also recognise their own role in becoming a responsible citizen of the world.

Implementation:

Our curriculum has been designed to be both knowledge-rich and coherently sequenced. Knowledge and skills have been interleaved across the curriculum, allowing children to encounter and apply these in different contexts. From year to year, unit to unit, lesson to lesson, the curriculum supports children in making connections and building upon prior knowledge. As children work through our geography curriculum they will know more and understand more about the world around them. This curriculum structure helps pupils to deepen their understanding of physical and human geographical processes, fostering curiosity and fascination for the world we live in. For example, the children develop a secure understanding of ‘sustainability’. They are introduced to the concept in Year 1 through learning surrounding preserving woodlands and recycling in the ‘Our Wonderful World’ unit. This is then expanded into more general applications of reducing, recycling, reusing and saving water/energy in Year 2, taught through the ‘Let’s Explore the World’ unit. This is then revisited and built upon in Year 3 and Year 4 with learning around sustainable energy sources and how people can reduce their carbon footprint in both the ‘Our Planet, Our World’ unit and the ‘Interconnected World’ unit. 

Our geography curriculum is balanced to enable children to look in some depth at local, national and world geography, alongside geographical skills and wider issues of human geography and sustainability. This approach builds geographical knowledge and understanding in a way that builds on children’s prior knowledge, allowing them to make meaningful connections and gain an understanding of how our world is connected.

Each year our geography curriculum begins with a unit that explicitly teaches geographical skills such as locating places on a map, positioning items on a map, using symbols in a key, interpreting scale, reading climate graphs, identifying locations using co-ordinates, interpreting population data, identifying elevation on relief maps and more. The spatial sense units for each year group are positioned at the beginning of the year to explicitly teach skills which will then be used in context throughout the rest of the year as children apply those skills to learn more about people, places and the environment. The spatial sense units build on prior knowledge before moving children on as the level of challenges increases from year to year. 

Impact:

The curriculum aims to ignite children’s love for geography, preparing them with essential knowledge for Key Stage 3 and beyond. Children will aspire to discover more about the world, through reading, travel or the media and know that they can use their voice to express themselves and their opinions. By the end of their time at Wrestlingworth and Dunton, children will also have a deep understanding of geographical concepts and a confidence in geographical skills. 

Cornerstones have ten Big ideas which thread through their curriculum and we have linked these to our whole school vision – 

From the smallest seeds grow the biggest trees

OUR CHRISTIAN VISION

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. A man plants the seed in his field.  That seed is the smallest of all seeds. But when it grows, it is one of the largest garden plants. It becomes a tree, big enough for the wild birds to come and make nests in its branches.”

Matthew 13:31-32, International Children’s Bible

We believe each child is like a mustard seed, growing and thriving in our Church school family.  All children are nurtured here and flourish through our teaching and care.  We empower children to seek out the opportunities, responsibilities and experiences of life; children are inspired to be the best that they can be. Everyone is valued and able to grow in the love of God.

Whoever you are, you are welcome here.

Our geography curriculum is closely linked to our school vision and aims to ensure all children feel empowered to seek out opportunities and take on responsibilities regarding their impact on the planet and people around them. Children are taught about sustainability and how human activity affects the world and what can be done to reduce the impact of human activity. Children are also given new experiences through the field work and school trips taken throughout the year. Additionally we have high expectations of what children can accomplish and through a knowledge and vocabulary rich curriculum we strive to nurture all children and help them flourish. “Everyone is valued and able to grow”, and through our supports and tailored teaching we ensure all children, no matter their need progress and engage in the curriculum to achieve their best outcomes.