Welcome to Highfields School Geography page

Introduction to Geography

At Highfields, we provide a geography curriculum that is ambitious and designed for all pupils. It is coherently planned and sequenced towards cumulatively providing the necessary knowledge and skills for the pupils’ future to empower them to take their role as informed and active citizens in the 21^st century.

From Year 1 to Year 6 the scope of each unit increases, expanding from the pupils’ own environment to the wider world. Place studies start local and increase in scale to regional, national and global, allowing for revisiting, developing and challenging ideas and concepts.  Similarly, consideration of the weather and seasons progresses to more in depth study of the importance of climate and finally addresses protecting environments from global warming and combating climate change.

Our focus throughout is on contextualised geography, using real, named, localities and environments, which can be located on appropriate maps.  Where possible, our teaching is aligned to our local geography and cultural capital, with units covering our local community of Manningtree, our local rivers, the River Stour and the River Colne, and our residential field trip to Cromer in Year 5 includes a focus on the UK’s changing coastline.  We look to avoid stereotypes, for example, an illustration of the variation in features is given wherever possible to overcome this (not all cliffs are white like those at Dover, especially in Norfolk!).

Special Educational Needs Disability (SEND) / Pupil Premium / Higher Attainers

All children are catered for within our Geography lessons. All children receive Quality First Teaching. Any child with identified SEND or who is pupil premium may have work additional to and different from their peers in order to access the curriculum dependent upon their needs. As well as this, our school offers a range of opportunities for all children to reach and achieve their full potential, which may include additional extension activities.

Web links

Year 6 using 6-digit grid references with local places and explaining how a compass works