Orchard Park Community Primary School

Geography at Orchard Park Community Primary School

Intent - Our aim

We want every child to:

• Understand the world around them – both human and physical geography.
• Explore their local area, starting with Orchard Park, then North Cambridge, Cambridge City, and the wider county.
• Learn how places change over time and what this means for the environment.
• Appreciate Cambridge’s role in education and industry and why it matters globally.
• Discover different places, people, and cultures, reflecting the diversity of our school community.
• Build curiosity about the wider world and their place within it.
• Gain skills that:
  • Support other subjects.
  • Promote spiritual, moral, social, and cultural development.
  • Prepare them for the next stage of education and life.

At Orchard Park Community Primary School pupils will develop a deep understanding of human and physical geography. As members of a new and developing community, our pupils will have a deepened understanding of the constantly changing profile of their own locality and the impact this change has on the environment. As citizens of Cambridge, pupils need to understand its importance and significance in the world of education and industry. Pupils will be empowered by a rich understanding of contrasting places, people and environments directly reflecting the diverse heritage of our whole school population.

Geography is highly valued within a broad and balanced curriculum, which inspires our pupils and encourages a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people and places, how they interact and have evolved, that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. In a rural location with globally significant farming, agriculture and landscape as our fenland context, we work to ensure children privilege the narrative of our landscape in their deepening understanding as geographers. 

---

Implementation - How We Teach Geography 

We have carefully selected a programme of study, in Opening Worlds, which builds on our key priorities across our curriculum of explicit vocabulary and confident communication skills applied to powerful and rigorous disciplinary knowledge. Pupils are motivated by the high challenge and robust resources which we overlay with local field study and enrichment, drawing on the significance of our local area so children learn to appreciate their own place and its importance. 

Our Geography curriculum is taught through a clearly sequenced curriculum, where learning is carefully mapped from EYFS to Y6 to ensure that the understanding of key concepts is developed in each year. ​Our content is taught in cycles throughout EY/KS1, Lower KS2 and Upper KS2 where sequences of learning are carefully mapped within each academic year and where, at key milestones, coherence of prior learning builds towards pupils confidently getting better at Geography by revisiting or recalling learning in the context of new content. We are mindful of when a children transitions e.g. to year 5 and 6 what helpfully antecedent material they will have learnt in year 3 and 4 which we draw upon to support further learning. We are in our journey of exploring Opening Worlds as a key priority of our school improvement over the next 3 years and further adjustments will support ensuring the coherence of KS1 to KS2 will be developed as part of the sustainable implementation plan for the subject within our humanities programme.

---

Impact - What Difference Does It Make?

• Children show their learning in topic books and through knowledge organisers.
• They review their progress at the end of each lesson.
• As they move through school, they:
  • Gain a strong understanding of Cambridge and beyond.
  • Learn about careers linked to geography through visitors and trips.
• Geography supports:
  • Critical thinking.
  • Problem-solving.
  • Awareness of global issues like sustainability and climate change.

Content

Early years

Geography is an essential part of learning in the Early Years Foundation Stage as it is incorporated in everyday learning through Understanding of the World. The geographical aspects of the children’s work relate to the objectives set out in the early learning goals (ELGs).​

Key Stage 1

Pupils develop their knowledge about the world, the United Kingdom and their locality. They will be introduced to basic subject-specific vocabulary relating to human and physical geography and begin to use geographical skills, including first-hand observation, to enhance their locational awareness. 

Pupils will be taught to: 

• use world maps, atlases and globes to identify the United Kingdom and its countries, as well as the countries, continents and oceans

• use simple compass directions (North, South, East and West) and locational and directional language

• use simple fieldwork and observational skills to study the geography of our school and its grounds and the key human and physical features of its surrounding environment

• devise a simple map

• identify seasonal and daily weather patterns in the United Kingdom and the location of hot and cold areas of the world in relation to the Equator and the North and South Poles

Key Stage 2

From September 2025, KS2 pupils will be following the 'Opening Worlds' curriculum. This is a knowledge-rich humanities programme for teaching history, geography and religion in Years 3 to 6.  Lessons are taught through rich, extended text in booklets. All new vocabulary is pre-taught and practised through a blend of direct instruction, engaging story-telling and other activities. Pupils will develop their use of geographical knowledge, understanding and skills to enhance their locational and place knowledge. By studying the local area and contrasting locations in the United Kingdom, Europe, North and South America, children will develop a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. ​

Fieldwork and Geographical data skills

An important part of our geography curriculum is the application of skills and fieldwork. Children will use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries. Locally, they will use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area using a range of methods, including sketch maps, plans and graphs, and digital technologies. They will use fieldwork and skills to collect and analyse data as well as looking closely at physical and human processes such as urbanisation, volcanoes, earthquakes and global warming.