“Geography is the subject which holds the key to our future.”
Michael Palin
At Cavendish Church of England Primary School, Geography helps children understand their place in the world and the relationships between people, places and environments.
We want our children to be curious about the world around them: from their own school, village and local landscape to the United Kingdom, Europe and the wider world. Through Geography, pupils learn to locate places, recognise patterns, investigate physical and human processes and consider how people and environments are connected.
Geography reflects our school vision: We Learn. We Love. We Belong. Children learn about the world and the people who share it; they develop respect for different places, environments and communities; and they begin to understand their responsibility for caring for the world in which they belong.
Our Geography Curriculum
We use the Kapow Primary Geography mixed-age curriculum, carefully organised into a two-year rolling programme designed for the mixed-age structure of Cavendish.
Our curriculum provides full coverage of the National Curriculum across each two-year phase and develops four interconnected areas of geographical learning:
- Locational knowledge – knowing where places are and developing an increasingly secure mental map of the world;
- Place knowledge – understanding what places are like and comparing different locations;
- Human and physical geography – understanding the processes that shape places and how people interact with environments; and
- Geographical skills and fieldwork – using maps, geographical tools, observations and data to investigate and communicate geographical understanding.
Geography is taught through one substantive unit each term. Kapow lessons are followed in sequence so that knowledge and skills build lesson by lesson, while teaching is carefully adapted for the different ages and needs within each class.
For 2026/27, we are following Cavendish Cycle B, with Cycle A taught in 2027/28.
Our Mixed-Age Class Structure
Our Geography curriculum is specifically organised around the mixed-age structure of Cavendish.
Robins – EYFS, Year 1 and Year 2
Children begin with the places closest to them before extending their understanding of the United Kingdom and contrasting places around the world.
Across the two-year programme, enquiries include:
- Where am I?
- Would you prefer to live in a hot or cold place?
- What can you see at the coast?
- What is it like here?
- What is the weather like in the UK?
- What is it like to live in Shanghai?
Reception children access shared geographical contexts through Understanding the World, while Year 1 and Year 2 pupils work towards the statutory Key Stage 1 Geography curriculum.
Wrens – Year 3 and Year 4
Children extend their knowledge to increasingly varied regions and environments while developing a deeper understanding of physical and human geographical processes.
Their enquiries include:
- Why do people live near volcanoes?
- Why are rainforests important to us?
- Where does our food come from?
- Who lives in Antarctica?
- Are all settlements the same?
- What are rivers and how are they used?
Children develop increasingly secure mapping skills and begin to undertake more systematic fieldwork, making connections between physical processes, settlement, climate, trade, resources and sustainability.
Owls – Year 5 and Year 6
Children apply their geographical knowledge at greater scale and complexity and increasingly consider the connections and interdependence between people, places and environments.
Their enquiries include:
- Why does population change?
- Why do oceans matter?
- Can I carry out an independent fieldwork enquiry?
- What is life like in the Alps?
- Would you like to live in the desert?
- Where does our energy come from?
By upper Key Stage 2, pupils are expected increasingly to select appropriate geographical methods, analyse evidence, explain patterns and relationships and reach well-supported conclusions.
Thinking and Working Like Geographers
We want children to understand that Geography is not simply about remembering the names of places.
Geographers ask questions, investigate places and processes, collect evidence, identify patterns and use what they discover to reach conclusions.
Our geographical enquiries progressively develop children's understanding of:
- place;
- space and location;
- scale;
- physical processes;
- human processes;
- interdependence;
- environmental impact and sustainability; and
- cultural awareness and diversity.
As pupils move through school, they progress from describing familiar places to explaining the relationships between physical and human characteristics and, eventually, evaluating changing places and the connections between them.
Maps and Geographical Skills
Maps are central to Geography at Cavendish.
Every unit begins by locating the place being studied on a map at an appropriate scale, helping children connect new learning with their existing understanding of the world.
Children regularly use:
- maps and atlases;
- globes;
- aerial photographs;
- digital mapping;
- compass directions;
- symbols and keys; and
- Ordnance Survey maps.
As children progress, their mapping becomes increasingly precise. They develop from following simple routes and creating basic maps to using eight-point compass directions, grid references, scale, latitude and longitude and digital mapping with increasing confidence.
Our aim is for children to build a secure mental map of the world, rather than learning about individual places in isolation.
Fieldwork and Geographical Enquiry
Fieldwork is a central part of Geography at Cavendish.
Children learn Geography by going outside, observing places, collecting information and asking geographical questions about the environments around them.
Our fieldwork follows an increasingly sophisticated enquiry process:
Question → Observe and plan → Measure and collect → Record and analyse → Present and evaluate
Children learn not simply to collect data, but to consider what that evidence tells them, identify patterns and anomalies and use it to answer a geographical question.
As pupils progress through school, fieldwork moves from supported observation and simple mapping towards increasingly independent decisions about what information to collect, how to collect it and how reliable the evidence may be.
Our Local Geography
Our location provides rich opportunities for children to experience Geography first-hand.
We deliberately use our school grounds, woodland, Peace Garden, Cavendish village, the River Stour catchment and accessible nearby settlements to make geographical learning meaningful.
Children might investigate features and land use within the school grounds, map routes around Cavendish, observe weather and seasonal change, explore how woodland is used, investigate settlement patterns or study a local river environment.
Where appropriate, opportunities to investigate the Suffolk coast and nearby towns extend children's fieldwork beyond their immediate village.
Our local area is not simply an additional activity within Geography: it provides an important starting point from which children learn to understand increasingly distant and complex places.
The Cavendish 5 in Geography
As in all subjects at Cavendish, our Cavendish 5 underpin high-quality teaching and learning in Geography.
Retrieval
Children regularly revisit previously studied places, vocabulary, map knowledge and geographical processes so that new learning connects securely with what they already know.
I Do, We Do, You Do
Teachers explicitly model geographical techniques such as map reading, data collection and analysis before practising alongside pupils and supporting them towards increasing independence.
Purposeful Practice
Children repeatedly use maps, atlases, geographical vocabulary, data and fieldwork techniques so that important knowledge and skills become increasingly secure.
High-Quality Questioning
Children are encouraged to locate, compare, explain, investigate, identify patterns, consider relationships and justify geographical conclusions.
Feedback
Live feedback helps children address misconceptions, improve the accuracy of geographical vocabulary and mapping and strengthen the conclusions they draw from geographical evidence.
Geography in the Early Years
Geographical understanding begins in Reception through Understanding the World.
Children explore their immediate environment through first-hand experiences, stories, maps, observation and discussion. They learn to describe familiar places, compare their lives with those of people in other places and notice features and changes within the natural world.
Children also begin to use positional and directional language, follow simple routes and represent familiar places.
Our school grounds, woodland, Peace Garden and village environment provide valuable opportunities for children to develop curiosity, observation and an early sense of care and responsibility for the world around them.
Reception children are not assessed against the National Curriculum for Geography. These experiences provide the foundations upon which their Key Stage 1 geographical learning is built.
Sustainability, Interdependence and Stewardship
As children progress through Geography, they increasingly recognise that people, places and environments are connected.
Our planned curriculum provides opportunities to explore topics including climate, rainforests, food, trade, population, oceans, tourism, natural resources and energy.
Children learn that geographical issues are often complex and that decisions can have consequences for people and environments in different places.
Where they arise naturally within our planned curriculum, we make climate, sustainability, interdependence and stewardship explicit. Children are encouraged to use geographical evidence to think carefully about environmental pressures, possible actions and the choices individuals and communities can make.
Inclusion in Geography
Geography is for every child.
Teachers remove barriers through explicit vocabulary teaching, photographs, maps, objects, models, diagrams, oral rehearsal and carefully structured tasks.
Complex maps and data can be broken into purposeful steps before scaffolding is gradually removed as pupils become more secure.
Our principle is to adapt access, not ambition. All pupils encounter the central place, process, concept and enquiry question.
Fieldwork is also inclusive. Mixed-age grouping may be used deliberately, but all children — including younger pupils and pupils with SEND — are supported to collect, interpret and explain geographical evidence rather than simply observing others doing so.
Assessment in Geography
Assessment focuses on what children know, understand and can do geographically.
Teachers draw upon:
- low-stakes retrieval;
- pupil discussion and explanation;
- map and atlas work;
- fieldwork;
- observations and measurements;
- data collection and analysis;
- diagrams and annotated maps; and
- geographical conclusions.
We assess whether children can draw upon their knowledge to answer an enquiry question, interpret evidence and explain relationships between human and physical geography.
We do not judge geographical understanding primarily by the quantity or presentation of children's writing. Pupil talk, mapping, data handling and fieldwork reasoning are equally important evidence of geographical understanding.
Geography and Our Christian Vision
Geography provides powerful opportunities to explore belonging, responsibility and stewardship.
Children learn that they belong to a local community while also being part of a much wider, interconnected world. Through studying diverse places and communities, they encounter lives and experiences different from their own and develop respect for the richness and diversity of our world.
Our Christian vision encourages us to recognise our responsibility to care for people, places and creation.
Geography helps children explore that responsibility with knowledge and thoughtfulness. Rather than simply telling children what they should think about geographical issues, we equip them to examine evidence, understand different perspectives and consider how choices can affect people and environments locally and globally.
The Impact of Geography at Cavendish
By the time children leave Cavendish, we want them to have developed a secure geographical understanding of their local area, the United Kingdom and the wider world.
They should be able to locate places confidently, use maps and geographical tools, explain important human and physical processes and recognise how people, places and environments are interconnected.
They should be able to ask geographical questions, collect and interpret evidence and use what they discover to reach increasingly well-reasoned conclusions.
Most importantly, we want our children to leave Cavendish curious about the world, respectful of its diversity and conscious of their own place and responsibility within it.
We Learn. We Love. We Belong.