Geography

“An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfilment.”

David Attenborough

Geography is wonderfully ‘hands on’ discipline – as you’d expect for a subject that seeks explore the physical world in which we inhabit. Our focus is on helping the children to make sense of our environment and providing them with the skills to rigorously investigate and understand the significance of the natural world and human interaction with it.

In the early years, we look to stimulate children’s interest in the world at large and at home. As far as possible we bring learning to life outside the classroom. You’ll often see our youngest children exploring our grounds with maps in hand or building cities out of sand whilst talking about irrigation and erosion. We want to create enhanced understanding of the environments that will lead children to make eco-friendly decisions as adults.

We break places down into their various human and physical aspects and build an understanding from the bottom up. Children may start with global location and geology (literally the ground under their feet) and then move on through topography and ecosystems to contrasting refinements of economic activity and culture.

Field trips are and intrinsic part of learning about Geography and every year our Upper School children explore local beaches or river ways diligently collecting data and conducting surveys. Our Year 8 residential trip is hugely popular and the work the children undertake investigating their own hypothesis is excellent preparation for GCSE and beyond.

As the world the challenges facing the natural world change, so does our geography curriculum.  We are constantly reviewing the relevance and creativity of what and how we teach to make sure all our children are academically stimulated and appropriately challenged.

 

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