Geography

GEOGRAPHY PROGRESSION MAPclick here

Our Aim

At Highfield we aim for Geography to inspire in our children a fascination about the world and its people. Children learn about diverse places, people and environments, and to understand the processes that have created them. Classes benefit from lots of opportunities to explore topics in a hands-on way, both indoors and outdoors. We want children to question the way our world is, how it is changing, and their own place within it, and we ask plenty of “What if…?” questions to stimulate their curiosity.

National Curriculum Requirements

The National Curriculum for Geography says that pupils should:

  • Develop knowledge of locations, defining their human and physical characteristics
  • Understand processes that give rise to the world’s geographical features
  • Develop geographical skills (fieldwork, data analysis, interpretation of a range of information sources including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems).

Please find the link for the Geography Programme of Study we follow at Highfield available below:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/239044/PRIMARY_national_curriculum_-_Geography.pdf

Enrichment

Children regularly use the school grounds and the local area of Winchmore Hill to carry out fieldwork. We are fortunate to be able to make use of spaces close to our school such as Woodcroft Wildspace, The New River and Firs Farm Wetlands. We have also been very lucky to have visits from the Canal River Trust, Drama4all and the Thames Explorer Trust.

  

Children’s Geography learning in school is enriched by cross-curricular links to other subjects – for example, work may be linked to a History topic with children considering the features of land in the UK and thinking where Vikings might choose to settle and why. Cross-curricular theme days such as our International Day further enrich children’s learning.

We were very excited to celebrate Earth Day as a school this year. The children took part in a range of interactive and practical lessons in their year groups and we even had a Highfield competition to create our own Earth Day poster display!

We have been extremely fortunate to been able to participate in a range of virtual sessions run by UCL called GeoBus. The sessions have been interactive and allowed our children to hear from leading individual in the field of climate change. The children have been able to find out how our world is changing, look at a range of 3D images and also ask any questions they may have. These sessions have exposed our children to the wide range of job opportunities there are linking to Geography. These sessions also provided cross curricular links with the children’s Science learning. Highfield also has an enthusiastic group of Junior Travel Ambassadors (JTA), please see below for further information.

Useful Websites and Learning Tools

http://www.ngkids.co.uk/

http://www.google.com/earth/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/subjects/zbkw2hv 

https://www.3dgeography.co.uk/usa-themed-model-making 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zcdqxnb/year/z7s22sg

https://www.ducksters.com/geography/country.php?country=Korea,%20South

Eco Council

Highfield has an active and enthusiastic Eco Council whose members meet weekly. Children learn about the impact of our actions on the environment and are encouraged to think about how to make a difference themselves. Some of the activities in which children have been involved are:

    • Litter picking in our school grounds and in Highfield Road
    • Learning about textile waste and making T-shirt bags and sock puppets
    • Making our own paper
    • Reusing our unwanted teddy bears – sending them to Syrian refugees (Teddy Aid)
    • Learning about food waste. Installing wormeries in Early Years and KS1 classes at Highfield. Meeting the worms!
    • A tree survey with Enfield Council to find out more about the importance of trees, and which trees we have in our school grounds
    • Planting new tree saplings in the school grounds
    • Visiting Firs Farm Wetlands to compare our tree saplings with more established ones
    • Poetry writing with Cheryl linked to the new trees
    • Seasonal activities e.g. reusing old Christmas cards for tags, making poppies with egg boxes
    • A project with “Eco-Active”, during which children learned about waste prevention in lots of exciting ways. This culminated in a trip to the Science Museum for an awards ceremony (our Eco Council won first prize for their scrapbook and £500 to spend on Eco initiatives in the school such as our wormeries)
    • Communicating learning and activities to other classes e.g. through Eco Council assemblies
Junior Travel Ambassadors

At Highfield we have an enthusiastic group of KS2 children who make up our school Junior Travel Ambassadors. These children have the important role of considering ways of making our journeys into school safer and healthier.

The JTA are extremely proactive and hardworking with this continued effort being reflected with their Gold STARs Award. This is a fantastic achievement and something that they are incredibly proud with as are the rest of the school. This year they are planning on continuing their hard work in order to keep up their ‘Gold’ status.

The JTA have been very busy and have been working with TFL and Enfield Council. Together they have created Highfield’s very own ‘Walk to School’ map which shows walking routes, public transport routes and also places to park a short distance from the school and then how to walk from there. The map has been a very big success, and we are hoping that it will continue to help reduce the congestion outside the school gates at drop off and collection times. This year we will be thinking about how we can be healthier as we travel to school and how to promote our gaol at Highfield.

Meet our JTA Team!