Geography

At Hadrian Academy, we achieve Excellence Together in Geography through following the National Curriculum and the scheme of work set out by Kapow. 

These are the 4 key strands of geographical learning throughout the school: 

• Locational knowledge 
• Place knowledge
• Human and physical geography
• Geographical skills and fieldwork

The Geography curriculum is a spiral curriculum, with essential knowledge and skills revisited with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. 

Each unit is set as an enquiry question, meaning children gain a solid understanding of geographical knowledge and skills by applying them to answer enquiry questions. These questions are open ended and children are able to collect, interpret and represent data using geographical methods to make informed decisions. 

Long term Geography Plan 

Each unit contains elements of fieldwork to ensure these skills are practised and built upon as often as possible. Fieldwork follows an enquiry cycle of question, observe measure, record and present. It also includes smaller opportunities on the school grounds to larger-scale visits to investigate physical and human features. 

Geography is taught for 45 minutes to 1 hour a week from Year 1 to Year 6, for half a term each term, sharing curriculum time with History for the other half of term. EYFS teaches Geographical skills through continuous provision activities. 

Assessment of Geography

Each Kapow begins with a question e.g.  Who lives in Antarctica? Our end of unit assessments are low stakes, using simple multiple choice questions followed by a more open-ended task (e.g. a knowledge catcher) to enable children to demonstrate their knowledge further and use their subject-specific vocabulary. 

In Geography by the end of KS2, Hadrian Academy children will: 

• be able to compare and contrast human and physical features to describe and understand similarities and differences between various places in the UK, Europe and the Americas. 
• be able to name, locate and understand where and why the physical elements of our world are located and how they interact, including processes over time relating to climate, biomes, natural disasters and the water cycle. 
• understand how humans use the land for economic and trading purposes, including how the distribution of natural resources has shaped this. 
• develop an appreciation for how humans are impacted by and have evolved around the physical geography surrounding them and how humans have had an impact on the environment, both positive and negative. 
• develop a sense of location and place around the UK and some areas of the wider world using the eight-points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols and keys on maps, globes, atlases, aerial photographs and digital mapping.
• be able to identify and understand how various elements of our globe create positioning, including latitude, longitude, the hemispheres, the tropics and how time zones work, including night and day. 
• be able to present and answer their own geographical enquiries using planned and specifically chosen methodologies, collected data and digital technologies.