At St Nicholas, we are committed to being a fully inclusive school, where all pupils are welcomed, valued and supported to succeed. We provide a broad and balanced curriculum for all pupils, underpinned by high expectations and a belief that every child can achieve.

Our first approach is always high-quality teaching, where the learning objective remains the same for all pupils. We do not routinely lower expectations. Instead, we focus on identifying and removing barriers to learning, adapting how pupils access the curriculum through:

• sentence stems and writing frames
• diagrams, images and Widget symbols
• visual prompts to support understanding
• use of word mats
• talk partners and structured discussion
• real-life objects
• adult prompting and questioning
• reduced cognitive load through simplified layout and clear instructions

Where needed, pupils may demonstrate their understanding in different ways, including:

• verbal responses with adult scribe
• practical outcomes e.g., drama
• use of assistive technology
• supported or adapted recording

For pupils working significantly below age-related expectations, learning is adapted so that they remain fully included in the same curriculum experiences, themes and contexts as their peers, while working towards personalised targets linked to their individual needs.

Support is planned and reviewed through the school’s graduated approach of assess, plan, do, review, ensuring that provision is responsive, builds over time, and leads to meaningful progress and increasing independence.

All teachers are responsible for the progress and inclusion of all pupils in their class, and support staff are deployed to enhance access and promote independence, rather than replace teacher interaction.

In Reception, the foundations of Geography are developed through the Understanding the World area of learning, particularly the strands People, Culture and Communities and The Natural World. Children begin to explore Geography by learning about their immediate environment, including their classroom, school grounds, local area and places that are familiar to them. They talk about where they live, places they have visited and the different communities they belong to.

Through stories, maps, photographs, outdoor learning, seasonal observations, walks around the school grounds and discussions about different places, children begin to notice similarities and differences between environments. They develop early geographical vocabulary such as place, map, near, far, journey, weather, season, land, water, town, countryside and environment.

This prepares children for Year 1 Geography by helping them to describe places, observe the world around them, ask simple questions and talk about human and physical features. These early experiences provide the building blocks for later learning, where children will use maps, compare locations, identify key features of places and begin to understand how people interact with the world around them.

Our curriculum is carefully sequenced so that pupils build knowledge and develop skills progressively over time. We use KAPOW to support curriculum design, drawing carefully on its progression of knowledge and skills to ensure learning builds securely from pupils’ starting points towards increasingly complex concepts and outcomes.

The scheme is not used as an off-the-shelf curriculum. Leaders and teachers carefully select, adapt and supplement its content to meet the requirements of the National Curriculum and the needs of our pupils. This includes adding our own learning where appropriate and considering pupils’ backgrounds, cultures, experiences and local context, ensuring that the curriculum is relevant, representative and ambitious for the children at St Nicholas.

Progression mapping is carefully applied across our mixed-age classes, ensuring pupils access their age-appropriate curriculum entitlement while making meaningful connections with learning across the class. Teachers use progression documents to identify what pupils should know, understand and be able to do, building deliberately on prior learning, avoiding unnecessary repetition and preparing pupils for what comes next.

This ensures that, while KAPOW provides a strong structure and progression framework, the curriculum pupils experience is distinctly our own: carefully designed, inclusive and responsive to the St Nicholas community.

At St Nicholas, Geography is taught in line with the National Curriculum, providing pupils with a broad and balanced understanding of the world around them. Pupils develop knowledge of places, people, environments and geographical processes, while building an understanding of how these are interconnected.

Through geographical enquiry, pupils develop key skills including collecting and analysing data, using maps, atlases and digital resources, and communicating their geographical understanding. Our curriculum also enables pupils to explore both their local area and the wider world, developing curiosity, respect and a sense of responsibility towards the environment.

We aim to ensure that pupils develop the knowledge, skills and understanding required by the National Curriculum, while fostering a lifelong interest in the world around them.

In Geography, assessment is used to help teachers understand what children already know, what they have remembered and what they need to learn next.

At the beginning of each Geography unit, children complete a short pre-test to identify their prior knowledge and understanding of the topic. This helps teachers recognise what children already know, identify any misconceptions and adapt planning where needed.

Throughout the unit, teachers assess children’s learning through questioning, discussion, vocabulary use, map work, fieldwork, practical tasks and the work completed in books. This helps teachers check that children are building their geographical knowledge and developing the skills needed to think like geographers.

At the end of each unit, children complete a post-test to show what they have learned and remembered. Teachers use this to identify any gaps in learning and to plan opportunities to revisit important knowledge, vocabulary and geographical skills.

This approach helps ensure that children build a secure understanding of places, people and environments, while developing curiosity about the world around them.

At St Nicholas, we value enrichment and cultural capital as an important part of pupils’ education, providing opportunities for children to broaden their experiences, develop curiosity and gain a deeper understanding of the world around them.

Geography plays an important role in developing cultural capital by helping pupils explore different countries, cultures, environments and communities. Through geographical learning, pupils develop an understanding of places beyond their own locality and appreciate the diversity of the world in which they live.

We aim to make Geography meaningful through opportunities to explore our local area, make connections with the wider world and learn about different ways of life. This supports pupils in becoming knowledgeable, respectful and curious individuals who are prepared to engage positively with the wider world. We do this through: 

• VR experiences 
• Residential – Nell Bank and Herd farm fieldwork, walk, local area
• Skelton Grange – forest environment
• Yorkshire Water

Here are high-quality texts for Geography from EYFS to Year 6. Included are a mix of:

• Story and information texts
• Atlases, maps and fieldwork resources
• Poetry and picture books
• Reading opportunities beyond books, such as weather charts, travel brochures, OS map extracts and data tables

These support locational knowledge, place knowledge, human and physical geography, vocabulary development and fieldwork.

EYFS

• Handa’s Surprise by Eileen Browne
• We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen
• Busy Town by Richard Scarry
• The Journey Home by Frann Preston-Gannon
• Grandad’s Island by Benji Davies
• At the Beach by Roland Harvey

Year 1

• Katie Morag and the Two Grandmothers by Mairi Hedderwick
• Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney
• The Train Ride by June Crebbin
• A Walk in London by Salvatore Rubbino
• Burglar Bill by Janet and Allan Ahlberg
• Oliver’s Vegetables by Vivian French

Year 2

• The Great Explorer by Chris Judge
• The Story of Maps by Izzi Howell
• Katie Morag Delivers the Mail by Mairi Hedderwick
• The Street Beneath My Feet by Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer
• My Map Book by Sara Fanelli
• Clean Up! by Nathan Bryon

Lower Key Stage 2

Year 3

• Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth by Oliver Jeffers
• The World Made a Rainbow by Michelle Robinson
• The Boy Who Biked the World by Alistair Humphreys
• Moth by Isabel Thomas
• Atlas of Adventures by Rachel Williams
• The Hike by Allison Farrell

• Year 4

• The Cloudspotter’s Guide by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
• River Story by Meredith Hooper
• The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
• Window by Jeannie Baker
• Erika’s Story by Ruth Vander Zee
• Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne, adapted extracts where suitable

• Year 5

• Trash by Andy Mulligan
• The Wild Robot by Peter Brown
• Children of the World by Tessa Strickland
• Geography: A Visual Encyclopedia by DK
• Himalaya: A Human History by Ed Douglas
• Off the Map by Alastair Bonnett

• Year 6

• The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
• The Last Wild by Piers Torday
• A Street Through Time by Anne Millard
• The River by Olivia Laing
• An Atlas of Imagined Places by Laura Evans
• The Cities Book by DK

• Cross-curricular geography reading opportunities

  These work well across the whole primary phase:

• Maps, atlases and globes
• Aerial photographs and satellite images
• Weather reports and climate graphs
• Travel brochures and tourism leaflets
• OS map extracts
• Fieldwork notes and survey sheets
• Environment and sustainability articles
• Case studies and reports
• Signs, labels and directional language
• Local area information and heritage trails

We value what our children have to say about Geography and use their views to help us celebrate what they enjoy and identify ways we can continue to develop our provision. Here is what some of our pupils say about Geography at our school: