At St Joseph’s, our Geography curriculum aims to inspire in every child a curiosity and fascination about the world, its people and their own place within it. We want our children to become confident young geographers who are curious about their local community, knowledgeable about the wider world and increasingly able to understand the complex relationships between people, places and environments.

Beginning with the familiar and progressively widening children's horizons, pupils will develop secure locational and place knowledge, understanding their immediate locality before making connections with the United Kingdom, Europe and the wider world. Our curriculum will enable children to recognise and compare the physical and human characteristics of different places and understand how these places change over time.

Children will develop an increasingly sophisticated understanding of important geographical concepts including place, space, scale, interdependence, physical and human processes, environmental impact, sustainable development, cultural awareness and diversity. They will understand that geography is not simply about knowing where places are, but about asking questions about why places are as they are, how they are connected and how people's actions can shape them.

We want our children to develop the geographical knowledge and skills needed to investigate the world around them. They will learn to interpret maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs and digital mapping; use directional and locational language; collect, present and analyse geographical information; undertake purposeful fieldwork; and communicate their findings using increasingly precise geographical vocabulary.

Our curriculum will reflect our distinctive context and community. Children will develop a strong knowledge of Carterton, Oxfordshire and their surrounding environment, while also being deliberately exposed to places, cultures, environments and experiences beyond those immediately familiar to them. Through comparisons with contrasting localities, we will broaden horizons, challenge assumptions and help pupils appreciate the diversity and interconnectedness of the world.

As a Catholic school, our Geography curriculum also provides meaningful opportunities to live out Catholic Social Teaching, particularly through consideration of stewardship, human dignity, solidarity and care for our common home. Children will be encouraged to consider their responsibilities towards other people and the natural world and understand that their choices can have consequences locally and globally.

Ultimately, we want children to leave St Joseph’s seeing themselves not simply as learners of geography, but as curious, informed and responsible citizens of the world.

Our Geography curriculum is principally informed by the Grammarsaurus Geography scheme, providing a carefully sequenced progression of geographical knowledge, concepts, vocabulary and skills from Year 1 to Year 6. The Grammarsaurus curriculum is mapped against the National Curriculum and deliberately revisits geographical knowledge and concepts so that children have opportunities to know and remember more over time.

Learning begins by revisiting prior knowledge. Teachers explicitly identify what children already know and provide opportunities for retrieval so that pupils can connect new learning to established geographical understanding. New knowledge is introduced in manageable steps, with teachers explicitly modelling geographical vocabulary, concepts and skills. Knowledge organisers, maps, images, diagrams and other appropriate resources provide additional scaffolding and support children in retaining important knowledge and vocabulary in their long-term memory.

Our curriculum progressively develops the four interconnected areas of locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, and geographical skills and fieldwork. Children repeatedly encounter important concepts such as place, scale, interdependence and sustainability in increasingly sophisticated contexts.

Fieldwork is an important part of our geography entitlement. Children are given opportunities to observe, question, measure, collect data, record, analyse and draw conclusions within real environments. This begins with familiar settings such as the school grounds and local area and develops towards increasingly independent geographical enquiries. Grammarsaurus itself builds fieldwork through investigations including school grounds, local parks, weather and climate, land use, rivers and ecosystems.

Children regularly use maps, atlases, globes, aerial photographs and digital geographical information, with map skills progressively developed throughout the school. Teachers explicitly teach children how to use these tools rather than simply presenting them as resources.

Our mixed-age curriculum is carefully mapped to ensure that all pupils receive their full curriculum entitlement and that learning builds progressively rather than simply repeating topics. Where year groups are split between classes, teachers work collaboratively to ensure consistency of knowledge, vocabulary, skills and expectations.

Adaptive teaching ensures that children with SEND and those who join the school at different points can access the same ambitious geographical curriculum. Scaffolding, explicit vocabulary instruction, visual resources, modelling, practical experiences and carefully structured tasks support access while maintaining high expectations.

Where purposeful, Geography is enriched through high-quality texts, visitors, local expertise, fieldwork, visits and first-hand experiences. These experiences are not treated as additions to the curriculum but as opportunities to deepen children's geographical understanding and create meaningful memories of the places and environments they study.

Assessment is used throughout teaching to identify what children know, remember and can apply. Teachers use questioning, retrieval activities, pupil discussion, work scrutiny, geographical enquiry and end-of-unit assessment to identify misconceptions and inform subsequent teaching. Grammarsaurus units themselves incorporate cumulative quizzes and assessment opportunities to support this ongoing checking of knowledge.

By the end of their time at St Joseph’s, our children will be knowledgeable, curious and confident young geographers with a strong understanding of their local area and an increasingly broad knowledge of the United Kingdom and wider world. They will know more and remember more geographical knowledge and will be able to make meaningful connections between places, environments, people and processes.

Children will confidently locate significant places and geographical features and use appropriate geographical vocabulary to describe, compare and explain them. They will understand key human and physical processes and recognise that places are interconnected and continually changing. Importantly, they will increasingly be able to explain why geographical patterns occur rather than simply identify them.

Our pupils will be able to think and work geographically. They will ask increasingly perceptive questions, select appropriate methods of enquiry, undertake fieldwork, collect and analyse data, interpret a range of geographical sources and use evidence to reach and communicate conclusions. They will confidently use maps, atlases, globes, aerial imagery and digital mapping and apply their knowledge independently when investigating unfamiliar places.

Through regular retrieval and carefully sequenced learning, children will retain important geographical knowledge in their long-term memory, confidently drawing upon previous learning to understand new places and concepts.

Children will demonstrate respect for different cultures, communities and ways of life and understand the relationship between people and their environments. They will recognise some of the significant environmental challenges facing our world and understand concepts such as sustainability, conservation and responsible use of resources. In keeping with our Catholic mission of Fidelis in Servitio – Faithful in Service, they will understand that caring for people, communities and our common home involves responsibility as well as knowledge.

Our children will leave St Joseph’s with a strong sense of place and belonging: proud of their local community while curious about the world beyond it. Rich fieldwork, visits and experiences will provide memories for life and encourage children to continue asking questions about the world around them.

Most importantly, they will leave us ready for the next stage of their geographical education, equipped not simply with geographical facts but with the knowledge, vocabulary, enquiry skills and critical thinking required to understand an increasingly complex and interconnected world.

Why is geography important?  Click here to watch Sir David Attenborough tell us.