Teaching Geography at Templars Primary School
At Templars Primary School, our tailor-made Geography curriculum has been written with belonging at its very core. Pupils learn what it means to be part of a community; that our community is successful and diverse and that this is something to be celebrated!
Beginning in the Early years, pupils learn about the physical and human features of the immediate locality of their school – Tile Hill - and their city of Coventry. We want them to be proud of who they are and where they are from but we celebrate difference too and encourage pupils to be curious and ask questions about our world, introducing them to contrasting environments.
Locational learning is very much embedded in broader topics and links are made across the curriculum, particularly with history to provide a context for learning and introducing many places that are not local, including places in the UK and other countries and continents.
The geographical lens widens in KS1, placing Coventry in the West Midlands when pupils learn about and visit Birmingham. Overlapping teaching and field trips reinforce prior learning and no opportunity is lost to show pupils where they belong and how they fit in to the world beyond their immediate experience. Throughout KS2 new locations are added – European countries, the Americas but we also believe it is important to teach our pupils about current world issues and events and how these impact on all living things in our world, both locally and across the world. For example, we believe it is important that our pupils are aware that Coventry was the first city to offer refuge to the Syrian population displaced by the current conflict.
Pupils are inspired to compare and give their opinion on the places they study; we aim to stimulate a love for Geography and open them up to a world beyond our city. We offer a variety of exciting and topical school trips to some of the places studied, which provide pupils with a range of valuable life experiences and present them with many opportunities to see first-hand how beautiful and interesting our world is. Trips have been very well thought out to include a wealth of cultural capital including a farm, airport, stately home, quarry, seaside town, medieval castle and London.
We also aim to help pupils to learn that it is everybody’s responsibility to care for our world. Our Geography curriculum provides them with the knowledge to develop this lifelong care and respect for our planet and its living things.
Finally, at Templars, our geography curriculum also places great importance on learning about people from a range of backgrounds and cultures who have made amazing contributions to the world of geography, for example, Daphne Sheldrick and Edith Farkas. We aim to show pupils that by studying geography, they too can belong to this exciting academic world in the future.
We envision that with a secure knowledge of our Geography curriculum, pupils will develop skills that are transferrable to other subjects and daily life. It is a curriculum that is flexible and progressive to reflect our continually changing world and remain relevant for our pupils. We strive to ensure that the knowledge our pupils gain will contribute to their becoming both proud, confident and responsible citizens and lifelong geographers!
Claire Morgan (Geography Co-ordinator)