At Raynham we want our children to develop a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We want them to understand and have opinions on key global geographical issues which affect our world, and we want to teach them to value ways of life that are different to their own. 

We follow the National Curriculum and Early Years Foundation Stage framework for the teaching of Geography and children learn through a focus on key geographical concepts of: 

• Locational knowledge  
• Human and Physical Geography
• Skills and fieldwork

As children move through the school from Early Years to year 6, their knowledge, experience and understanding of these concepts will broaden as they meet them again in greater depth in different ways over the years. Through revisiting and making links with past learning, the children can increase their understanding of geography and ensure they have a firm foundational knowledge to take with them to secondary school. 

As a school, we have built in a developmental approach to teaching location and place knowledge, moving from their local area to London and the UK, before moving on to the wider world. We teach both physical and human geography and how each impacts on the other. We encourage the children to appreciate different cultures and ways of life across the world, beyond their own experiences.

Key to our curriculum is the building of cultural capital for our children, enhancing their knowledge of places across the world, for example, each class learns about a local area or country around the world, as well as enabling them to have practical opportunities to learn about geography that they may not otherwise have. For example, year 5, visit the local river and study an alternative river in another country for comparison.

Vocabulary enrichment runs through our whole curriculum and geography lessons provide an excellent opportunity to develop vocabulary that can be used in many other subject areas.