At The Spinney our geography curriculum aims to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for geography; providing a broad, balanced, ambitious and inclusive curriculum whilst also ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills. We follow the national curriculum in both key stages and in KS2 this is supported by the Opening Worlds curriculum. 

Our learners are encouraged to be inquisitive, to pose questions and seek answers. Our geography curriculum inspires children to look closely at the world around them and develop the skills necessary to be able to interpret what they see. We want geography to be creative, fun and above all be relevant and meaningful to the children’s own lives and experiences. As such we seek to build upon the child’s “personal geography” by developing locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography and geographical skills and fieldwork, starting with them and their immediate locality before branching out and examining the national and international world. We seek to broaden children's real-life experiences both inside and outside of school through educational visits, visitors, exploration and discovery. We encourage the use of cross curricular links, encompassing the use of subjects such as technology, art, and maths as well as allowing opportunities to develop our literacy skills. We are fortunate to live in a community rich in culture and diversity and we embrace the opportunities this affords us. We want to encourage our pupils to be global citizens, educated and aware of the world we live in and the positive impact we can have.

Our curriculum will equip pupils with a knowledge of diverse places and people, together with a deep understanding of our planet’s key physical and human processes. As the environment is a key priority, we want our curriculum to empower children with a deep understanding of local, national and global ecological issues and provide them with the necessary knowledge to make positive change.

Geography lends itself as a highly cross-curricular subject that encourages children to critically examine, explore, appreciate and comprehend the world in which we inhabit. At a primary curriculum level, the study of Geography focuses on notions of place, space and environment, whereby students develop the skills of understanding a locality and how humans have adapted to this physical space, transforming it – over time – in to a ‘place’. Furthermore, a fundamental element of working geographically is the notion of physically venturing out into the world and exploring the processes of our planet through practical fieldwork investigations.

As with all subjects in the curriculum, the humanities provide the powerful knowledge that, if thoroughly and securely taught, builds the wide and secure vocabulary acquisition that underpins literacy and all successful communication. We know that pupils only read with the speed necessary for fluency when 5 they have adequate prototypes for abstract words and phrases, and when their densely structured schemata allow them to ‘chunk’ the incoming text for meaning. Vocabulary size is the outward sign of the inward acquisition of knowledge. Moreover, the types of account that form each subject’s processes and products – its narratives, analyses, arguments – give pupils continuous, focused practice in reading and writing, both fiction and non-fiction. Pupils reading and will always be richly grounded in stimulating content in which pupils will be increasingly secure, and always driven by a clear disciplinary purpose.