Please click here to view our geography progression document. 

Geography at Glenleigh Park

At Glenleigh Park Primary Academy, children are geographers who are nurtured to enquire about the world around them. From EYFS through KS1 and KS2, children build geographical skills and develop a wealth of knowledge about the local and wider world around them.

Our curriculum is carefully designed so that through children’s geographical journey at Glenleigh they know more and remember more. Learning journeys, skills, and concepts are carefully sequenced, explicitly linked and interconnected.

Learning Journeys and experiences

In EYFS and KS1, children begin by pinpointing their place in the world. Reception children develop an understanding of our school and its location. This is then built upon in KS1 where children learn about the United Kingdom, its countries, and how Bexhill is similar and different to our capital city. This is then revisited and deepened in the summer term in every year in every year group where we undertake a local study, for example year 5 study local coasts and year 6 study local trade.

As children progress through the school they have the opportunity to explore more diverse natural and human environments and processes, and make connections between them. Year 2 experience Peru’s coast, mountains and the Amazon, which is built upon in year 5 when they dive deeper into the layers of the rainforest and consider modern impacts on this ecosystem. This also builds upon knowledge of rivers and their processes from year 4.

Learning is enriched by first-hand experiences. As well as utilising our school grounds, woods, town and beach, trips and visitors and event days bring learning to life. For example, year 2 have an annual Peru day and year 3 have an Italy day. Year 2 visit Battle Abbey and year 5 have a visitor from the rainforest. 

Concepts and Skills

Underpinning geography are the three concepts, place, space and scale. Children become skilled in thinking in this way, and asking and answering their own questions driven by these concepts. To do this, children use high quality geographical resources including atlases, globes, and digital maps.

In EYFS children begin mapping their own fiction and non-fiction experiences. In KS1 children use high quality resources to locate and map places. In lower key stage 2 children discover, through first-hand experience, the importance of grid references and the eight compass points. In upper KS2 children consider more complex maps including those representing economic and trade patterns.

Assessment and impact

Children begin each unit by completing a pop quiz, which provides teachers with a baseline. Throughout learning journeys, children continually work towards answering this again at the end. 

At the end of each unit, children take pride in applying all their learning to not only repeat the pop quiz, but also to show their deeper geographical knowledge, skills and conceptual thinking to answer a thinking square and concept question.

The impact of our curriculum and the geographical experiences we provide is a school where children are excited by geography. Not only do they leave Glenleigh Park ready for the geography curriculum at Key Stage 3, but they have a strong foundation for life as a curious and analytical adult in the wider world. They know that the world is wide and have preferences of where they might like or aspire to go.