Welcome to our Geography page

Intent of our Geography Curriculum

We are creating the informed global citizens of the future, teaching children to think, speak and write geographically. Being a geographer means engaging with real world places, people and environments as well as contentious issues and difficult decisions. Our curriculum provides a set of skills and a body of knowledge that contributes to geographical analysis, understanding and explanation, and to an ability to make informed judgements. 

The high-quality geography education delivered at Swansfield inspires children to develop curiosity and a sense of awe and wonder about the world and its people to prepare them for a lifetime of learning. 

Our Geography curriculum is packed with interesting and relevant knowledge about the children’s immediate surroundings as well as the wider world. It grows coherently and sequentially from their first understandings of their sense of place in the world in the EYFS to a more detailed and extensive framework of knowledge of  the world by the time they leave our school. 

Our curriculum gives pupils a deepening understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. Over time, children should begin to see the connections and interdependence between these processes. These links inform their understanding of how the world works and of how humans affect and are affected by the environment.  

We equip our children with a knowledge of diverse places, people and environments whilst placing the greatest emphasis on investigating our local area and finding out how Alnwick’s geography helps to write a narrative about our town’s heritage, its character today and its future. This enables our children to develop a real sense of who they are and what makes Alnwick and Northumberland unique and special. 

Our Geography curriculum has been carefully planned to introduce and build on some key concepts in Geography – space, place and scale, human and physical geography and the interaction between them.  

Our curriculum builds up competence in geographical enquiry – the application of skills in observing, collecting, analysing, mapping and communicating geographical information.

In the links below you can find our Becoming a Geographer document which shows how early Geographical skills build through the Understanding the World Early Learning Goal and our Curriculum Overview for our 2 year rolling programme through KS1 and KS2. 

Implementation of our Geography Curriculum

• In EYFS, Geography is taught through the Understanding the World strand delivered through provision and adult-led activities
• In KS1 and KS2, the curriculum is taught on a two year rolling programme with opportunity to revisit and revise key skills several times within an age phase. The knowledge and skills taught in each age phase (KS1, LKS2 and UKS2) build progressively over time
• The curriculum themes of space, place, scale and time are interweaved through the curriculum
• Geography at Swansfield moves from the ‘local’ to the global and uses as its starting point (throughout the curriculum) children’s lives and knowledge
• Each unit of learning starts with a fieldwork-based lesson to introduce the key skills of fieldwork and to give children the opportunity to explore the school, its grounds and the local area
• Trips and in-school visitors are organised throughout the year for children across EYFS, KS1 and KS2. For example, Reception classes welcome police officers, farmers and the RNLI in to talk to the children; KS1 classes undertake a walking tour of Alnwick to identify physical and human features; LKS2 classes visit Bulby's Wood to undertake fieldwork in the river and explore the Breamish Valley; UKS2 classes go to Alnmouth to look at erosional processes on the beach.