At Nightingale Infant & Nursery School, it is our intent for the Geography curriculum to inspire our pupils with a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people, and that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

The teaching of this subject will equip our pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a greater understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.  We aim to encourage the children to show their respect for their local, national and international environments.

As our pupil’s progress through EYFS and Key Stage One and increase their geographical skills, their growing knowledge about the world will help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments.

Based upon the National Curriculum and the individual needs of our children, we have created a Geography progression map, which sets out the objectives taught in each year group. Geography is taught as part of our two-year cycle for each age phase. We alternate our Geography and History topics ensuring that our children receive a well-rounded teaching of the humanities subjects throughout the year. Geography may be taught through daily data collection (weather/season outcomes), Geography themed days (Fieldwork Day) or throughout a half term in individual lessons. It is important to us that Geography is intertwined in a variety of ways to ensure all learning objectives are covered and to allow children to make links to their learning. At times, we take the opportunity to create links between the two subjects to help solidify the learning taking place. Each individual lesson has content that is differentiated between, and within, year groups so that learning is age-appropriate and high expectations are maintained.

By the time children leave Nightingale Infant and Nursery school they will:

• Have a good knowledge of where places are and what they are like.
• Have a good understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.
• Have an extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.
• Be fluent in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques.
• Have the ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings.
• Have significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity as shown in interpretations and representations of the subject matter.
• Be highly developed and frequently utilised fieldwork and other geographical skills and techniques.
• Have a passion for and commitment to the subject, and a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there.
• Have the ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current and contemporary issues in society and the environment.