At St Alphonsus RC Primary School, we put Christ at the centre of our teaching and learning.  Our curriculum stems from our Mission Statement: 

God lives in me. I am His witness. 

I respect everybody, everybody respects me. 

In our loving school, everyone is unique. 

Just like the flowers in the field, as they

grow, we too grow in God’s love each day.

The life and teaching of Jesus and the values of the Gospel underpin all aspects of school life.

Why we teach Geography at St Alphonsus RC Primary School?

At St Alphonsus we aim to foster children’s interest through a geography curriculum underpinned by Christian values, strengthened through enquiry that channels confident, happy, independent and resilient learners.

We want our children to receive a high-quality geography education so that all pupils are fluent in the fundamentals of geography, have the ability to apply their knowledge, skills and understanding in a range of meaningful contexts and raise questions about the world around them.  We also want pupils to have an appreciation of geography and aim to nurture a sense of wonder and awe about their surroundings, both near and far. We celebrate the cultural diversity of our pupils and we want the children to see geography as being relevant to their world and applicable to everyday life, as well as being something that they learn through school and ultimately can take into the world of employment and beyond.

Through enquiry, Geography lessons allow children to build curiosity, ask questions and investigate answers in a variety of ways. The curriculum is designed to make learning relevant and enjoyable for our children. At the beginning of each topic, children are able to convey what they already know as well as what they would like to find out. This informs our teachers planning to ensure that lessons are relevant, personal and take account of children's different starting points. Comparison studies are progressive, from comparing our local area Year 1 with an African village to comparing the River Thames and Amazon River in Year 6.

 The local area is utilised, school trips and fieldwork are provided to give first hand experiences. Through a wide range of experiences our children will learn about the features, diversity and wonder of our important world and how it should be treated, setting them up to be responsible global citizens and stewards, embracing the key principles of Laudato Si’.

As they progress through the school, children will draw on previous learning, not only from geography lessons but other related subjects enabling them, to make connections and links and combine that with new skills to complete a range of tasks.

Our children’s journey in Geography begins with ‘Where do we live?’- the impact of our curriculum aims to provide children with life skills that they will use in their life forever, first and foremost we aim to give children a sense of place. With this, we want our pupils to have thoroughly enjoyed learning about Geography, therefore encouraging them to undertake new life experiences now and in the future. We prepare children for future so they can be confident and articulate, expressive with technical vocabulary and inspired to be curious explorers of our world. We want our children to aspire to be amazing geographers of the future!