GEOGRAPHY AT BRACKENBURY
We are Geographers
At Brackenbury Primary School, we aim for our children to have a curiosity and fascination of the world that will stay with them throughout their lives. We believe geography will foster our learners to have a global understanding of our world through the people and cultures that inhabit it.
Through their work in geography, children at Brackenbury will learn about their local area; developing a sense of belonging within our local community. Pupils explore and compare their life in Portslade with that in other regions in the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. This enables them to build wider cultural and social awareness of both environments and the communities around them, becoming open-minded global citizens.
The curriculum is designed to develop knowledge and skills that are progressive, as well as transferable, throughout their time at school and also to their further education and beyond. We offer them the opportunity to use a variety of data, such as maps and statistics and we enable them to use IT where this serves to enhance their learning. Children take part in role-play, discussions and a wide variety of problem-solving activities. Wherever possible, we involve the children in ‘real-life’ geographical activities including local orienteering and debates involving our school’s use of energy and resources.
During each topic cycle, each teacher facilitates discussion around a Golden Question that drives the class' subject learning. At the end of each Geography lesson, the teacher will ask the class what they can add to their topic learning wall that may help them answer the Golden question moving forward. Over the term, this builds to support the children during both their lessons, with retrieval practice, and with their end of term assessment.
Here are some examples of our 'double page spreads' that answer our end of unit Golden Question.
KS1
What human features would you see if you flew across the continents of the world?
KS2
When do you think it was better to live - Stone, Bronze or Iron Age?
What is the legacy of Ancient Greece?
Our Geography Knowledge Organisers identify the Tier 2 and Tier 3 vocabularly children will need to confidently answer complete their assessment piece. Children are explicitly taught these chosen words across the topic sequence and encouraged to use them when discussing the Golden Question and discussing their learning with peers.
Each year group share their Golden Question double page spreads with their partner year group to develop their understanding of the subject and their oracy skills further.
We talk like Geographers
To see the progression of skills, click HERE.