We expect every child to be curious about the world they live in, including countries, people, resources and the natural and human environments. As they progress through the school, children will learn about all of these different areas and how they make an impact on the Earth.

To support our pupils, we focus on building each child’s substantive knowledge; the facts we teach that form the narratives of the curriculum. This includes increasing their knowledge of places and scale, cultural diversity around the world, the differences between physical and human processes and the impact humans have on the environment.

Our pupils will also build the key disciplinary knowledge and skills of geography to use their substantive knowledge, such as using and making maps, growing their geographical vocabulary so they can talk about the impact of geographical events and carrying out fieldwork so they can learn how to carry out investigations, gathering data, analysing the results and coming to their own conclusions.

Each unit for Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 has been adjusted to ensure that every child has progressive coverage of the substantive and disciplinary knowledge as they move up through the school. The units have also been selected to ensure they are relevant for the pupils in St John’s taking into account their own geographical and cultural backgrounds.

We are also increasing awareness of sustainability throughout the school. Year 5 are taking part in the Green School’s Project: Zero Carbon Schools. This project looks at a cross-curricular programme for Years 4 – 8 with links to science, geography, maths, English, PSHE and art. As a result of the programme the pupils will:

• Learn more about Climate Change and take action in their school community

• Learn more about climate change and feel empowered to take action in their school community

• Develop leadership, communication, problem solving and teamwork skills

• Calculate an estimate of their school’s carbon emissions

Lead meaningful projects to reduce the school’s carbon footprint

Our pupils will leave equipped with the substantive knowledge and disciplinary skills needed for Geography at secondary school. They will also understand the importance of human impact, sustainability and how they can make a difference around the world.