Geography

Intent

Geography at Edgware Primary School equips children to make sense of their surroundings and the wider world. We teach both substantive and disciplinary knowledge across the four pillars of the National Curriculum: locational knowledge, place knowledge, and human and physical geography. Through this, we build a comprehensive and coherent knowledge base that deepens year on year.

We want children to understand the complex interactions between human and physical processes — how places are shaped, how people live within them, and how our actions as a global community affect the environment. Geography at our school is not just about knowing where places are; it is about understanding why the world looks the way it does, and what that means for all of us.

We aim to develop children's environmental and social awareness, fostering a genuine sense of wonder, responsibility and respect for the Earth, its people and its resources. We want our children to be curious, engaged geographers who can use their knowledge to think critically about complex real-world issues — including climate change — and who are equipped with the skills professional geographers use, such as fieldwork, data analysis and the use of maps and aerial photographs.

Implementation

Geography is taught discretely in every year group, in alternating half terms with history. This ensures children have sufficient time to explore topics in depth. We have topics overview documents. Units are carefully sequenced to build on prior knowledge and develop a secure understanding of key geographical concepts.

Our curriculum is deliberately structured to begin with what children know best — themselves, their school and their local area — before expanding outward to the wider world. Concepts are carefully broken down to ensure deep understanding before moving to greater complexity. 

Underpinning the curriculum are five whole-school 'golden threads' that run through geography year on year: Place, Enquiry, Change, Diversity and Interconnections. These threads have been carefully chosen to connect learning across year groups and reflect what we want our children to understand about the world.

In practice, this means:

• At the start of each unit, children review prior learning and share what they already know, allowing teachers to build on existing understanding and address misconceptions.
• Key vocabulary is taught explicitly so that children can use precise geographical language to support and express their learning.
• Children are encouraged to ask geographical questions, think critically, and collect, analyse and communicate information and data in a range of ways.
• Regular opportunities are built in to revisit learning from previous units and lessons, supporting children to know more and remember more over time.
• Specific geographical skills are developed progressively — including the use of maps, aerial photographs, fieldwork observation and data logging.
• Teachers assess knowledge and skills at the start and end of each unit. Leaders monitor progression across year groups to ensure the curriculum is having the intended impact for all learners, including the most disadvantaged and those with additional needs.

Impact

By the time children leave Edgware Primary, they will have built a secure and broad knowledge of the world — its places, landscapes, peoples and processes. They will understand how human and physical geography interact, and be able to describe and explain changes in the environment with confidence and accuracy.

Children will have developed the skills and habits of a geographer: asking meaningful questions, gathering and interpreting data, evaluating evidence and communicating findings clearly. They will be able to engage thoughtfully with complex global issues such as climate change, drawing on geographical knowledge and disciplinary skills to form reasoned views.

Above all, we want children to leave with a lasting sense of curiosity, wonder and responsibility for the world around them — informed, engaged young citizens who understand that geography is not just a school subject, but a lens through which to understand and care for our shared planet.