'Geography is the subject that holds the key to our future' - Michael Palin
In Geography at MHA, we aim to inspire in our children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives, helping them to make sense of the world, exploring the relationship and interactions between people, place and environment. We recognise the importance of Geography to enable our children to understand these relationships between places, the human and physical processes that shape them, and the people who live in them.
Our love of Geography begins with our youngest children and our Geographical learning builds on this firm foundation throughout the rest of our school.
In EYFS (Year R), Geography is mainly experienced through Understanding the World, considering People, Cultures and Communities and The Natural World. Our children start their journey in Geography with us by exploring and developing an understanding of their immediate world, building a wider and deepening understanding of an ever-increasing area and range of issues as they progress through our school.
In Key Stages One and Two, Geography is taught discretely as a standalone subject and, where appropriate, links are made to other subjects. Every Geography unit is based around an overarching theme with an umbrella question, , and each lesson has a key question that is used to develop understanding and deepening knowledge of the theme, ensuring coverage of the National Curriculum - Locational Knowledge, Place Knowledge, Human and Physical Geography, Geographical Skills and Fieldwork.
By developing specific geographical skills, our children make sense of our own surroundings through learning about our own local area, rural, coastal and urban, asking geographical questions and comparing the locality with that of other regions in the United Kingdom and in the rest of the world. Through their growing knowledge and understanding of human and physical geography across the world, our children gain a deep understanding of how our local environment differs from others, and how environments have an impact on the way people live. They are able to collect, analyse data and interpret a range of geographical sources, including maps, globes and aerial photographs.
Our Geography curriculum aims to inspire our children to think about their own place in the world and to develop a sense of responsibility towards the environment and an understanding of the interaction and interconnections between physical and human processes. The many opportunities and challenges that will arise during their lifetime will be very much about geography – personal, local, national and global - and our children will need to know about geography and to think like geographers, becoming globally aware individuals.
