We recognise that we are so fortunate to live in this stunning, central part of the country. Our local environment provides us with a wealth of experiential geographical learning. We therefore aim to bring this to life as often as possible by taking children out to experience e.g. physical geography: the formation of the Pennine landscape; human geography: our economy and use of natural resources. We want children to develop a sense of place which acknowledges that we live somewhere very special that they will need to safeguard in the future should they choose to settle here. Our local landscape fosters awe due to its beauty and dramatic appearance, directly linked to key geographical processes such as glaciation and weathering that we want children to understand. Our traditional economy also includes diversity – British Gypsum, Appleby Horse Fair and the A66 Trans Pennine route which we can use to develop and enhance our children’s place knowledge.
Equally, we take our responsibility to inspire curiosity, knowledge and understanding of the wider world seriously. We aim to equip our children with a flavour of the characteristics, and place knowledge they need of a range of European and Non-European countries, to tempt them into becoming life-long explorers.
Children will regularly be given the opportunity to apply their age-appropriate geography skills and fieldwork opportunities. As well as bespoke lessons, cross curricular opportunities arise regularly and we see evidence of this in books, displays and photographs. Map skills will be taught alongside position and direction in a maths lesson. Atlases will be used in history when tracking the rise of The Roman Empire. A human geography trip to the seaside could be followed up artistically and recorded as a display. We invite local expertise into school e.g. Eden Rivers Trust and the Red Squirrel Society and are developing our Outdoor Learning curriculum to take advantage of the amazing grounds at our disposal.
