At Stokes Wood Primary, our geography curriculum aims to inspire curiosity and wonder about the world and its people. We want pupils to grow into knowledgeable, thoughtful and ambitious geographers who understand the connections between places, environments and communities locally and globally. Our curriculum builds a strong sense of place and scale, enabling pupils to explore how humans interact with and shape their surroundings. We aim for depth, not just breadth, ensuring that every pupil develops both substantive knowledge (what we know about the world) and disciplinary knowledge (how we find out). Oracy is promoted in our approach: pupils are encouraged to describe, reason, debate and explain geographical ideas clearly and confidently, using geographical vocabulary.

Geography is taught through well-sequenced units that move from the familiar to the unfamiliar, helping pupils make meaningful links between their local area, the United Kingdom and the wider world. Each unit begins with an enquiry question designed to stimulate curiosity and guide purposeful learning. Teachers use Rosenshine’s Principles of Instruction - reviewing prior knowledge, presenting new material in small steps, modelling thinking, providing appropriate practice and checking for understanding to ensure that learning is accessible and remembered. Lessons are designed to promote depth of understanding through the use of maps, globes, fieldwork and high-quality visual resources. Oracy is woven throughout: pupils are taught to use geographical vocabulary in discussion, to justify their conclusions and to communicate their ideas through talk and writing. Regular opportunities for retrieval practice and strong links to school’s interwoven conceptual strands (diversity, Leicester, sustainability) help pupils connect learning and see geography as relevant to their lives. 

Pupils at Stokes Wood develop a secure understanding of the world’s places, people and environments. They become confident in using maps, atlases and digital tools to locate and describe features of the Earth. They can explain patterns and processes such as weather, migration, settlement and environmental change. Those who are working well as geographers can ask curious and purposeful questions, gather and interpret evidence, make comparisons and express their ideas clearly through talk and writing. They show an ability to think critically about human impact, sustainability and interdependence and they demonstrate pride in the depth of their geographical understanding. Over time, pupils’ knowledge becomes increasingly precise, secure and connected, allowing them to grow into informed, globally-minded citizens who respectfully appreciate the diversity of our world and their responsibility within it. Our geography curriculum ensures that every child develops the skills, vocabulary and confidence to see themselves as ambitious geographers, ready to explore, question and look after the world around them.