Policy: Geography Policy
Subject Ambassador: Miss K. Hepple
Link Academy Councillor: Mr. J. Anderson
Statement of Intent 2021 -2022:
Our Vision:
A place where our children, adults and community can grow and thrive rooted in
Kindness, Fellowship and Confidence.
At Stanhope Barrington C of E Primary school, we aim to inspire our children with a curiosity of the world, supporting their questioning and understanding, motivating them to inquisitively find out more. We understand the importance for children to have a comprehensive global understanding of our world and the places, people and cultures in it, this is especially important as our children are based in a rural area.
Our curriculum provides a progression of wide Geographical skills which equip the children with the knowledge necessary to identify human and physical features both locally and globally. We aim to utilise their geographical skills through each Key Stage to build on their prior learning. Each learning zone will be working on their own community-based project with a final performance to showcase their learning and the impact they have made to the local community and further afield.
Geography promotes spiritual, moral, social and cultural development helping the children to have a greater understanding of their place in the world, and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment. Our children are the future protectors of our area of outstanding natural beauty and it is important that they learn the importance of local and global environmental issues.
Teachers promote and regularly utilise our local area of outstanding natural beauty, to enhance the children’s learning and to help them identify with their local area, giving them a real sense of identity. A range of sources are used in the classroom to develop a progression of map skills and support the use of appropriate geographical vocabulary. We also exploit our local natural environment to promote meaningful fieldwork opportunities for our children.
Opal Learning Zone
How can you care for penguin eggs? – What an experience! Today we were contacted by Chester Zoo who had a COVID outbreak in the penguin enclosure. The Zoo asked if we could help care for the penguin eggs for a day ensuring we keep them warm just like a penguin does. Initially, we watched a video on how a penguin cares for their egg and the we attempted to do the same. We could say we have a SMASHING time!
Orienteering – We have challenged the children use their locality skills with an Orienteering hunt around the outdoor area. The children had to work together to find a range of images to complete a jigsaw. The children showed fantastic fieldwork skills and also fantastic resilience despite the cold weather.
Amethyst Learning Zone
What is it like to live in Stanhope? – This half-term we have had a deep-dive into our local community as we unpicked Stanhope. Using a range of skills, the children were challenged to use maps to identify key features in our local environment. All of the children showed fantastic progress with their finding skills and we even created a route that we were to follow on our educational walk. After showing a good understanding of the town we ventured onto County Durham and attempted to locate it on a map of the United Kingdom.
Sapphire Learning Zone
Exploring Stanhope – We have been exploring what it like in our local area, Stanhope. We have used maps, keys and Atlases to help us look closely at where Stanhope is in the UK, the North East and then looked closely at Stanhope itself. We have thought carefully about the wonderful things we have in Stanhope and even created our own leaflets all about Stanhope and its hidden gems!
Ruby Learning Zone
What is the United Kingdom? – For our Geography topic we focused on the United Kingdom: learning about the different countries that make it up and using maps to find cities and other landmarks. We also learned about the different sizes of settlement, such as towns and villages and applied this knowledge to our local setting.
Emerald Learning Zone
Seas and Oceans – We have been learning about the seas and oceans that surround us in Geography. The children practice skills using maps and atlases to locate oceans. We have also studied tidal management techniques and the environmental impacts on building hotels in costal areas.
Diamond Learning Zone
Population – In geography, the children in the Diamond Learning Zone have been looking at the UK and how the population has changed over the past 50 years. We researched and read a variety of information sources and graphs to find out why the population has changed and record this in our books.
Archived Information
You can view our archived Humanities information on our website.
