Geography at Discovery

Geography is about the relationships between people, places and the environment. It is a subject for life and living. At Discovery, our geography curriculum aims to inspire in students a curiosity and fascination about the world and the people in it. Whatever a child’s passion for the world, we believe geography will provide them with knowledge and transferable skills that will reward them personally and advance them academically.

Geography at Discovery is used to give children the ability to identify similarities and differences between the world’s countries, regions, cultures, environments and landscapes. Our aim is to use geography to help develop children who are socially and environmentally sensitive. At Discovery, we believe everybody is an active member of a global community. As active members within this global community, we feel the children should learn about their responsibility to our world and how they can contribute to a sustainable environment. We believe that well-informed students will make a positive difference to our planet.

At Discovery, we believe that building on pupils’ geographical knowledge will deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes. Geography topics are delivered in blocks and pupils build on their geographical understanding as they progress through the years. The aim of our school is to develop in the children contextual knowledge of local, national and global locations. Furthermore, we develop pupils’ understanding of the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, with an understanding on how these can change over time. We also help to make students competent in the ability to conduct fieldwork with the aims of collecting, analysing and communicating data. Building on pupils’ ability to interpret and communicate an understanding on a range of geographical sources of information is important to Discovery.

Children begin their journey in EYFS by learning about simple human and physical features in their local environment. They also begin to develop a basic understanding that there are different places in the world in which people live and how the landscape of these places can vary to their own. As our students move through the years, they will apply their knowledge and skills to study people and places in the United Kingdom and the wider world. On their journey through primary school, Discovery will nurture in students inquisitive thinking and questioning skills. Instilling a love of enquiry and investigation is always at the forefront of geography learning at our school. Communicating their geographical understanding is vital and students will be given opportunities to do this through discussions, presentations, sketch mapping, plans and graphs, digital technologies, labelled diagrams and in writing. Moving through the years, children will also develop their map skills by using atlases, maps and globes.

Useful websites:

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/ - This website allows you to discover the amazing world that we live in through articles, videos and games.

https://earth.google.com/web/ - This website gives you the freedom to roam all around the world.

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/ - This interactive website will teach you geographical skills through interactive games.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/learn-about/weather -This website will help you discover our world’s weather phenomena

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/z2f3cdm - BBC Bitesize is full of information to build on your geographical knowledge.

https://www.iqair.com/earth?nav= - This website enables you to track air quality all over the world.