Geography at Manor Primary Academy written by Josh Culff – Geography lead 

As with most foundation subjects, Manor have now transitioned to Kapow to support staff delivering foundation subjects. The particular challenges here are the mixed age classes (ensuring coverage) as well as teaching golden threads of learning that children can use throughout their history journey at Manor. Staff have now spent considerable time plotting out a hybrid curriculum for the next 4 terms to ensure that Manor can move over to Kapow while ensuring that all pupils have been taught all statutory objectives in the Geography National Curriculum. A long-term plan can be viewed on the website. 

The intent at Manor is to inspire pupils to become curious and explorative thinkers with a diverse knowledge of the world; in other words, to think like a geographer. We promote our MANOR values throughout all our learning and we want pupils to develop the confidence to question and observe places, measure and record necessary data in various ways, and analyse and present their findings. We aim to build an awareness of how Geography shapes our lives at multiple scales and over time. We hope to encourage pupils to become resourceful, active citizens who will have the skills to contribute to and improve the world around them. By using the Kapow Primary’s Geography scheme to support teachers planning and assessment we aim for all pupils to meet the end of key stage attainment targets in the National curriculum. The aims also align with those in the National curriculum. For EYFS, the activities allow pupils to work towards the ‘Understanding the world’ Development matters statements and Early learning goals, while also covering foundational knowledge that will support them in their further geography learning in Key stage 1.With the support of Kapow Primary scheme we teach a spiral curriculum at Manor with essential knowledge and skills revisited with increasing complexity, allowing pupils to revise and build on their previous learning. Locational knowledge especially is reviewed in each unit to coincide with our belief that this will consolidate children’s understanding of key concepts, such as scale and place, in Geography.

Implementation at Manor – see appendix 1 

We deliver a 6-lesson unit termly in geography and try to also incorporate a trip (could be history of geography). Cross-curricular links are included throughout each unit, allowing children to make connections and apply their Geography skills to other areas of learning. Each unit contains elements of geographical skills and fieldwork to ensure that fieldwork skills are practised as often as possible. Kapow Primary units follow an enquiry cycle that maps out the fieldwork process of question, observe, measure, record, and present, to reflect the elements mentioned in the National curriculum. Lessons incorporate various teaching strategies from independent tasks to paired and group work, including practical hands-on, computer-based and collaborative tasks. This variety means that lessons are engaging and appeal to those with a variety of learning styles. Strong subject knowledge is vital for staff for all our staff to deliver a highly effective and robust Geography curriculum. We therefore guide them to use the teaching video guides on Kapow and seek advice for the subject leader regularly when teaching each unit. 

The Impact at Manor can be constantly monitored through both formative and

summative assessment opportunities. Each Kapow lesson includes guidance to support teachers in assessing pupils against the learning objectives which teachers can then adapt to their individual classes.  Furthermore, each unit has a skill catcher and knowledge assessment quiz which can be used at the end of the unit to provide a summative assessment. Alongside this Fierte are developing an assessment notebook for all foundation subjects. See appendix 2 for expected impact.

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

For this school year (2024-2025) we will be studying Cycle A of our curriculum. 

Geography Long Term Plan - Overview