Being Geographers

Geography Curriculum Intent 2025-26 (1).pdf

How do we teach geography at Nova and why has this approach been chosen?

At Nova Primary School, we aim to inspire in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world around them. Our curriculum is ambitious and is designed to ensure that teaching equips pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments. As pupils progress through our school, their growing knowledge about the world will help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between physical and human processes, as well as the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Geographical knowledge and skills are progressive and are sequenced to equip our children with a secure, coherent geographical knowledge of their locality, Britain and the wider world. 

At Nova, we follow the CUSP curriculum. It is cumulative, coherent and connected. In Early Foundations and CUSP Primary Geography, careful thought has been given to how content has been sequenced so that students have the best chance of committing learning to their long-term memory. Concepts have been positioned throughout the long-term sequence so that pupils can revisit them and build on them over time. Vocabulary has been carefully mapped to ensure that pupils acquire the language needed to make sense of these concepts and explain their understanding of core curriculum content. 

We define knowledge as being substantive and disciplinary.  

  • Substantive concepts focus on locational knowledge, place knowledge, physical and human geography, geographical skills and fieldwork. 
  • Substantive knowledge is the subject knowledge and explicit vocabulary used to learn about the content.  
  • Disciplinary knowledge focuses on skills such as place and space, scale and relationships, the impact of physical and human geography, environment and sustainability, culture and diversity.  

A guiding principle of Geography is that each study draws upon prior learning. For example, in the EYFS, pupils may learn about People, Culture and Communities or The Natural World through daily activities and exploring their locality and immediate environment. This is revisited and positioned so that new and potentially abstract content in Year 1 can be put into a known location and make it easier to cognitively process. CUSP Geography is built around the principles of cumulative knowledge focusing on spaces, places, scale, human and physical processes with an emphasis on how content is connected and relational knowledge acquired. An example of this is the identification of continents, such as Europe, and its relationship to the location of the UK. 

We aim for children to leave Nova as global citizens who are aware of how they interact with the world to create innovative and sustainable change for the future.

See below our programme of study and knowledge mapping document.

Geography-disciplinary-knowledge-mapping.pdf

What does Geography learning look like at Nova?

Here are some examples of children being Geographers:

EYFS developing their mapping skills & fieldwork. Children looked at aerial photographs of our local area and then focused on our school. They looked at photos and found where they were taken, then identified the areas on a map.
Year 1 using their mapping and fieldwork skills to search for treasure around school!
Year 2 children discovering that Geography can open endless, exciting life possibilities. Inspired by Sir David Attenborough, the children completed an African animal hunt using an ordinance survey map of the school grounds.
Year 6 using 6-figure grid references to identify notable people from the UK!

Resources:

Exciting geography news and activities: https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/category/discover/geography/

http://www.travel-images.com/#gsc.tab=0

Mapping:

A fun website with games and support for reading and using maps: https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/mapzone/

Search for local street maps and explore your local area: https://www.streetmap.co.uk/

Leadership:

Victoria Lauezzari is our Lead Geographer, who you can speak to to find out more about how we teach our Geography Curriculum at Nova.

Geography priorities this year:

•Children retain geographical knowledge and skills over time; they retrieve and apply them confidently.

•The CUSP geography curriculum is fully embedded providing children with opportunities to develop and showcase their passion for learning, resulting in high levels of pupil engagement and pride in learning. 

•Experiential learning, fieldwork and mapping skills are clearly mapped out across the school.

•Adaptive teaching principles are embedded to improve outcomes linked to subject specific knowledge and skills.

•Assessment in geography is purposeful, consistent and used effectively to improve pupil outcomes.