In our school we encourage children to gain an awareness of the world around them and to think about the effect people have upon it. Skills are taught progressively from Reception to year 6, with opportunities for children to build on and embed their learning.
Geography is planned and delivered at Key Stage 1 (years one and two) in line with the National Curriculum. Geography is taught using a variety of resources and experiences, including using maps, photographs, visits, artefacts, books, the internet, using our school grounds and visitors.
Reception children are given opportunities to develop their knowledge about the world through child centred and play led learning activities, including use of the outdoor environment. This is part of the Understanding the World area of The Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage. Staff respond swiftly to the children’s own child initiated learning experiences, interacting in a way which moves learning forwards for all learners. Understanding the World activities are also planned as part of the teaching sequence, which all children will be involved in.
Geography Summer Term 2024
Reception
During the first half of the summer term, reception children created a class story maps for The Three Little Pigs and Jack and the Beanstalk. They also had the opportunity to create their own story maps.
The children have also created models of real places, both locally and further away.
As part of the topic ‘Around the World’, Reception children have been learning about maps and plans. They began the topic by looking at a plan of our school, then created a whole class plan of the classroom. They used google maps to find our school and familiar places in the local community, then explored further afield. One child decided to search for the North Pole as they believed they might find Santa’s house. During independent learning time, some children chose to create their own maps and choose route and map related activities. The children develop their sense of place and knowledge of jungles, oceans, deserts, grasslands and tundra over the half term.
Year 1
Year one children learnt about Norfolk and their local area. They looked at a map of Norfolk and had a great discussion of places they had visited and where they would like to go. The children were given riddles and had to work out places that could be located on a map. The children had an in depth conversation about the physical features of these places and if they had visited them before.
Year one children also created maps of Holkham Hall, following on from their visit.
Year 2
Year two studied the topic “Art around the world” in spring 2 and the first half of the summer term. They studied a variety of countries, including Africa, Australasia, South and North America.
Geography Spring 2024
Reception
During the topic “People Who Help Us” children found out about the jobs of members in our community. The first week involved learning about bus drivers.
A bus trip around Dereham and Toftwood was organised for the Reception children with special thanks to the team at Konect bus. The children enjoyed sharing the places they knew with their friends, as they travelled around their locality. “I go to that shop and my house is that way,” said O. “McDonalds and Aldi is down there”, said O. It was lovely to hear the children explaining their findings to their friends, including how to press the button to stop the bus.
During the interview with the bus driver driver, they found the answers to their questions. This included where the bus fills up with fuel, why the bus has a number 8, why the bus is blue and where the bus driver ate lunch.
The children really benefitted from the experience and wanted to get back to school and recreate their own bus and role play being the driver and passengers.
Staff from the fire service, local vets and police also visited Reception to talk about their roles in the community.
Year 1
As part of their topic “Weather Experts”, year one children studied the weather in our school grounds; they identified daily and seasonal weather patterns in the locality. They also learnt about climate zones. The children also learnt how to use a compass and completed orienteering activities in the school grounds.
Following on from writing weather reports for the UK, the children recapped the UK and it’s 4 countries. They also discussed places they had visited in Norfolk.
The children also worked on finding out about a specific country, including the food, climate and flag.
Year 2
Year two children named and located the UK’s four countries and capital cities; they named the seas surrounding the UK. The children worked on naming the seven continents and five oceans. This will prepare them for detailed work on the continents later in the year.
Autumn Term Geography
Reception
Reception children have been very busy exploring their immediate environment, including talking about animals and plants in their outdoor area, which is known as ‘Ted’s Den’. They have also observed seasonal changes to the weather and the trees.
During independent learning time, Reception children have developed their sense of place by discussing the maps and leaflets in class.
Year one
Year one have been learning about animals and how they adapt to their region. This built on from work in reception when they studied the topic ‘Around the world’.
Year two
Year two children have been locating significant landmarks in Norwich and comparing old and new landmarks. Work included using google maps.
Geography Summer term 2023
Reception
During the first half of the summer term, reception children created a class story map from Jack and the Beanstalk. They also had the opportunity to create their own story maps.
A part of the topic ‘Around the World’, Reception children have been learning about maps and plans. They began the topic by looking at a plan of our school, then created a whole class plan of the classroom. They used google maps to find our school and familiar places in the local community, then explored further afield. One child decided to search for the North Pole as he believed he might find Santa’s house. During independent learning time, some children chose to create their own maps. The children develop their sense of place and knowledge of countries over the term.
Year 1
Year one children learnt about Norfolk and their local area. They looked at a map of Norfolk and had a great discussion of places they had visited and where they would like to go. The children were given riddles and had to work out places that could be located on a map. The children had an in depth conversation about the physical features of these places and if they had visited them before.
Year one children also created maps of Holkham Hall, following on from their visit.
Year 2
Year two studied the topic “Art around the world” in spring 2 and the first half of the summer term. They continued to build on knowledge of Antarctica from year one, considering how humans and animals survive in the environment. Sessions also included finding out about Africa, Australasia, South and North America, and Egypt.
Year two also developed their compass skills in the school grounds.
We support and encourage children to gain an awareness of the world around them and to think about the effect people have upon it. We aim to involve children in investigative and problem solving activities. We give them opportunities to ask questions and find out the answers through research. As a school, we use a range of resources to stimulate the children, including maps, photographs, DVDS, artefacts, books and the internet. We also believe in using people and their experiences as a resource, for example Year 3 visit Banham Zoo, Year 4 travel to an outdoor geographical location and Year 5 are planning to visit the Broads as part of their local study in the Summer term. We ensure that children have opportunities to experience the subject in a variety of forms: – written, artistic, dramatic. For example, Year 4 children explore the local area including the school grounds and Year 5 have had an afternoon of outdoor activities to learn the 16 points of the compass In the past year, Goldcrest have worked with Year 6 on surviving outdoors by building dens and outdoor cooking using fire pits. Road safety awareness is taught to Years 5 and 6 through Cycling Proficiency.
Children are assessed through observation, questioning, and recorded work as appropriate.
Geography Junior Summer 2024
This half-term in Geography, Year 3 have started their unit on Volcanoes. We have learned about the many different types of volcanoes (including composite, shield and dome volcanoes) and how they can be active, dormant or extinct depending on their likelihood and recency of eruption. The children have been applying their knowledge by completing tasks such as identifying the parts of a volcano and even locating where famous volcanoes in the world are. It has certainly been a unit where the children have been very enthusiastic! The children have also enjoyed linking our Geography work with our Summer unit Guided Reading text, ‘When Disaster Strikes: Extreme Volcanoes’, and look forward to continuing to learn about volcanoes next half-term.
In Year 4, we have been focusing on map-work skills. We have learned about the equator, lines of latitude, longitude and the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. We have also looked at how the climate varies when you live within the tropics and the children even produced a weather report for a location in the tropics! We have also been learning to read four- and six-figure grid references and also to label the same features on an aerial photograph as on a map.
Year 5 started out by studying the history of the Norfolk Broads and we were interested and surprised to find out that they were actually man–made in the Medieval times by people cutting out peat for fuel. They then filled with water when sea levels rose and became navigable waterways where wherries would transport goods. The children also learnt about eutrophication and the positive and negative impacts of tourism and ways to resolve problems. They understand how man contributed to the making of the Broads and how man was now adding to its destruction. The children were keen to learn rich vocabulary associated with this topic.
Geography Autumn 2023
In our school we encourage children to gain an awareness of the world around them and to think about the effect people have upon it. Skills are taught progressively from Reception to year 6, with opportunities for children to build on and embed their learning. The children complete retrieval grids to show their understanding before and after the topic.
By Year 3, in the Autumn Term, the children are building on their mapwork skills by recapping their knowledge of continents and countries, in their ‘Around the World’ topic. They have then learned about places in the UK and developed our understanding of different settlements such as cities, towns and villages. Then, they compared two UK cities (Norwich and Birmingham), and even challenged themselves further by extending their map skills while learning about grid references.
In Autumn Term, year 5 have been learning about earthquakes, building on prior learning about mountains and volcanoes, talking about plate tectonics and the “Ring of Fire.” They also researched how earthquakes are measured and studied an earthquake in Chile.
The children are encouraged to record their work in various ways, to appeal to various learning styles and use these additional opportunities to practise their SPAG skills and presentation of their work. We make links with local events and discuss things which are happening globally as they occur, especially when the children have encountered them on their television or have been affected by these occurrences, such as local flooding.
Geography Year 5 Autumn 1
Year 5 have been learning about earthquakes and plate tectonics. This builds nicely on their prior learning of mountains and volcanoes in Year 4; they started the topic developing their retrieval skills, to enable them to build on this knowledge. They then represented their learning in an A3 spread, like the example shown below.
Geography Toftwood Junior
Year 5 have been studying recycling and the environment with cross curricular links with DT and history. We started by considering recycling in the past; Victorian finds, war years, through to the present day.
We have looked at the use and misuse of plastics where we have considered sustainability. In DT we communicated our concerns for plastics in the ocean, by creating sewn wall hangings.
We have also included new content to our curriculum where we have been finding out about renewable and non- renewable energies.
Geography Spring Term 2023
This half term, year 4 have been working on a very exciting cross-curricular project. The children have been using their geographical knowledge of maps and mountains alongside their scientific knowledge of electrical circuits to create electrical board games! They have put a lot of thought into the bright, eye catching design of their games and we have discussed how important it is for our “wires” (made from foil and masking tape) not to cross over so that the circuits are complete and the games works properly. The children have loved researching different mountains in Europe and then plotting them on their maps. Some of them were surprised to learn about the mountains we had in the United Kingdom!
Year 5 enjoyed studying South America. They started by recapping the map work and atlas skills, familiarising themselves with continents, oceans, then of countries within South America. Using globes, they were fascinated with the scale of the UK compared to South America. The children learnt about the Amazon River and other natural and man-made features. They took part in a deforestation debate, taking on the roles of various departments to get a balanced argument from different perspectives.
This unit was enhanced by linking our recount writing in Literacy, where the children learnt about the life of a child who lives in the rainforest, and the impact and threat that deforestation has on community.
This term in geography, year 6 have been learning about the continent of North America We have identified the countries that make up North America and used maps to create 3D models of the state of Hawaii. We identified the features of Hawaii that were natural and man-made and recreated one of the islands that create the state. Each group made a different island.
We have also learnt about trade and the sort of products that the UK import and export. We played a trading game to highlight the inequalities of trade between rich and developing countries, and how Fair Trade helps to support farmers in less well-off countries.
