Geography Curriculum

Vision:

Brooke Schools Geography Curriculum aims to inspire pupils to become curious and explorative thinkers with a diverse knowledge of the world; in other words, to think like a geographer. We want pupils to develop the confidence to question and observe places, measure and record necessary data in various ways, and analyse and present their findings. Through our scheme of work, we aim to build an awareness of how Geography shapes our lives at multiple scales and over time. We hope to encourage pupils to become resourceful, active citizens who will have the skills to contribute to and improve the world around them.

Geography Aims:

• To develop knowledge of local, regional, national and globally significant places, including their physical and human characteristics.  

• To understand how the earths features are shaped, interconnected and change over time.  

• To master geographical skills, including collection and analysis of data, interpreting sources (compass directions, atlases, photographs, etc.) and communicating geographical information (through maps, and writing). 

• To have a deep understanding of a range of human and physical geographical features and their significance.

• To develop a wide vocabulary of everyday geographical terms.

Our Curriculum is organised into 4 strands: Locational Knowledge, Place Knowledge, Human and physical geography and Geographical skills and fieldwork.

Different types of knowledge in Geography

Substantive knowledge (‘knowing about’)

Substantive knowledge is the content that pupils will learn through studying the Geography curriculum: the recognised knowledge of the world and the human and physical processes that affect the people and environments within it.

This content is separated into the following areas in the National curriculum and within our curriculum:

● Locational knowledge

● Place knowledge

● Human and physical geography

● Geographical skills and fieldwork

Disciplinary knowledge (‘ways of knowing’)

Pupils gain knowledge of the subject as a discipline, considering how geographical knowledge (such as the substantive knowledge they study) originates through geographical practice. Fieldwork enquiries in each unit give pupils the opportunity to understand and follow the same processes that geographers follow to find answers to enquiry questions and to consider the validity of these answers. Progression in disciplinary knowledge is shown in our Geographical skills and fieldwork strand but it is important to understand that to carry out an effective enquiry, geographers must draw on their substantive and procedural knowledge.
 

Procedural knowledge (‘knowing how to’)

Pupils gain procedural knowledge primarily through the Geographical skills and fieldwork strand. They learn knowledge of how to collect, analyse and communicate data and geographical information from fieldwork, maps and other sources and consider how to interpret this range of sources to answer enquiry question

Geographical concepts

Our Geography curriculum builds pupils understanding of the concepts of: Space, Place, Earth Systems, Environment, Time, Scale, Diversity, Interconnection and Interpretation.