Geography at John Ball

This page was updated: September 2022
Next update due: September 2023
Subject Lead: Katie Wampler

At John Ball, we believe that it has never been more important for children to have a comprehensive global understanding and knowledge of the world and the people and cultures that inhabit it. Through understanding geography and the complexity of our planet, we believe that our children will develop respect for the physical environment and the diverse range of cultures and beliefs that make up our world. Through our curriculum, our pupils have a means by which to apply their own direct experiences of the world and develop and extend it within a local, national and global context.  Pupils will also revisit Geography topics, providing them with opportunities to apply related knowledge, ideas and concepts—a technique called interleaving—allowing them to store information more deeply, challenging them to identify patterns and form connections.

At John Ball we draw from our rich locality as a source of learning based on first-hand experience and we place children’s learning in a personal context. The chronology of the curriculum is designed to be reflective and responsive to the development of children’s ever-expanding worldview as well as their growing capacity to understand more complex concepts rooted in geography, such as questioning whether there is “enough for everyone”.

Our Geography curriculum is designed to allow children to be critical thinkers with the skills to seek relevant information across all topics. It is by developing these critical reasoning skills, the ability to ask important questions, weigh up information and form well-rounded perspectives/judgements that we aim to contribute to the growth of young, accountable world citizens.