Smarden Primary

Exploring, enquiring, explaining, and empowering are the key words that underpin sound geographical teaching and learning. So, how do we do this at Smarden?

A geography lesson at Smarden is 'Purposeful, problem-orientated, enquiry-based, undertaken cooperatively, involves active engagement and is stimulated by engagement with good-quality resources.' (Catling and Willy, 2018)

Geography at Smarden follows the 'Discover, Explore, Create' curriculum which allows us to focus on Geography in more detail and depth. Enquiry based learning and child initiated learning is at the heart of this curriculum. Experts are invited in to give talks to the children - for example, Sophie Montagne, part of the first all female team to cross Antartica, gave an online talk to pupils in Year 3 and 4 learning about the polar regions during lockdown.

Our Geography curriculum also incorporates the features of Smarden's pedagogical model. Teaching approaches include questioning, encouraging enquiry skills, critical thinking, and debate. 'Critical thinking is the process of evaluating information, reflecting on it rather than accepting it unquestioningly, and using knowledge, experience and ethical judgement to form a view about it.' (Hatwood, 2019)

We follow the requirements of the National Curriculum for Geography:

Primary National Curriculum - Geography

We use the Geography Plus resources published by the Geographical association for planning most Geography lessons at Smarden.