Geography

Geography at St Andrew’s Infant school gives children an understanding and
appreciation of their school environment, their local environment, and
contrasting environments in the wider world.

In the EYFS, Geography is woven through the topics covered and follows a
child-led approach. The topics link to the objectives set out in the ELG’s, these
ensure the children are developing an awareness of the world around them
through a variety of activities. The children spend a lot of time outdoors
developing these skills as well as learning about the world through songs and
stories. Children in the EYFS should have an awareness of their local
environment including knowing that we can use a map to locate our house
and school, and these skills can then be built upon in the coming years.
In KS1, we follow the 2014 National Curriculum as well as using the
Cornerstones curriculum to structure our topics throughout the year. The
Geography lessons are then linked to these topics to give a wider context to
the children’s learning. We also use the Rainbow Continuum to ensure that
children are gaining the key skills, as well as the knowledge to develop in
confidence. Our intention is for the children’s Geography knowledge to
broaden as they move from EYFS through to Year Two, beginning with the
immediate environment and developing into towns, cities (London) and then
onto a contrasting locality in the world. By Year Two our children should have
an understanding of human vs physical geographical features and be able
to communicate using common geographical language.

We understand the importance of engaging Geography lessons, so we
ensure that the children experience real-life Geography, through school trips,
field work and simply being outside in our playground. We also tailor our
curriculum to suit our circumstances as a school and ensure that our children
are exposed to contrasting environments that they may not readily
experience, such as coastal towns and capital cities.

Our school is well resourced, and all classrooms feature world maps, atlases
and globes that the children are able to access and use. Our library is
stocked with appropriate fiction and non-fiction books and teachers ensure
these books are available to the children in class and are read daily.