At Sandhurst Primary School, our history curriculum is designed to enable our pupils to gain a knowledge and understanding of the environments in which they live and the wider world around them. We aim for our pupils to be inquisitive, curious and concerned about their planet. As a school, we want to motivate them to learn about Earth; how it is formed of vast differing physical environments and the diverse range of cultures which inhabit our globe.In line with the national curriculum, we use carefully sequenced lessons, inspired by the Cornerstones curriculum.

During their geography learning within their topics, we aspire to support our pupils to learn through a variety of experiences which include observing, collecting and interpreting information from a range of sources, as well as from practical activities of field work and visits. Children in Reception begin their geographical learning within the early years by developing their understanding of the world around them and beyond, through exploration.

Throughout Key Stage 1, pupils are taught directional and positional language to describe routes around them and they will learn how to identify features from maps, draw their own maps and locate landmarks. They will explore the world’s seven continents and five oceans, the different seasonal weather types and hot and cold environments.  We aim for them to develop knowledge of human and physical geography both locally and across the planet. They will build on this through Key Stage 2, where they will develop their physical geography by examining contrasting physical environments across the world to include earthquakes and volcanoes, mountains, rivers and seas. This will give them the opportunity to make progress with their mapping skills using more detailed atlases and ordnance surveys with grid references.

Pupils will explore human features of different land uses and settlements; naming cities and countries across the globe. They will find out about different climates and how the types of weather systems across the world work. Throughout our curriculum we encourage our pupils to use subject specific vocabulary and develop their reading and writing skills through geography with the use technology to research online as well as with non-fiction books.

We aim to teach pupils about the world in which they live, learn from it and its issues, and their place in contributing towards it as British citizens. Therefore, in geography we encourage our pupils to be active, mindful learners by asking questions and reflecting on the actions of themselves and others. We aim for our pupils to be respectful towards our planet and current world issues. We aspire for them to develop an active role in taking responsibility to look after our world.