Geography Intent at St Francis Xavier

Geography is essentially about understanding the world we live in. It helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. At St Francis Xavier, children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it and to enhance their cultural capital and know about life beyond Balby. The geography curriculum enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferrable to other curriculum areas. Geography is an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. At St Francis Xavier, our intent, when teaching geography, is to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and people within it; to promote the children’s interest and understanding of diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.

In Geography Year 3 explored  different areas of mountains and hills in the UK. We learnt the difference between mountains and hills. Then, we used a map to label the different famous mountains in the UK. 

In Year One, for our first Geography lesson, we explored our school by following a map. We looked at what our school has and how it could be improved. We also explored how keys are used in maps to help us follow it.

We then went on to explore our local area to discover what was nearby to school. We learnt lots of new vocabulary and can now identify different types of homes. 

For the beginning of the second part of our Europe journey we are going to be focusing on Italy and Rome. Therefore, we immersed ourselves in the Italian cuisine. We tried different types of pizzas, pastas and macarons. Once we had tried them we described the appearance, the smell and the taste of the food to help us get a feel for Italian food.

How would you care for a dragon? Well Nursery know how to! The children talked about how they would care for Madam Dragon. They mentioned how they would hug her, feed her, give her water and also play with her! 

Year 2 have loved learning all about Planet Earth in Geography. They have learnt about the 7 continents and 5 oceans and are learning lots of interesting facts about the different continents. 

As part of our Spring term topic, Year 4 are looking at the Amazon. We started by looking at the human and physical geography of South America. We have then looked at where rainforests are located in the world, before investigating the different layers within the rainforest.