Geography in Action
Here at St Bart’s, children are happy learners within geography. They experience a wide range of learning challenges within the subject and know appropriate responses to them, such as informed choices regarding current environmental issues e.g. limiting the use of plastics or the importance of recycling. Children, who attend Geography Club, created some recycling posters. The posters give detailed guidance on what can be recycled and how to reduce and reuse our waste. As followers of Christ, we understand that we are called to look after and protect the world God has given us.
Assembly ‘Stewardship of God’s Creation’. During the assembly, the children learnt about the importance of plants and trees. At St Bart’s, we are global citizens, we have the rights and responsibilities to look after and protect God’s creation. Our school invested in 4 plants; the plants started with the oldest classes and we will pass them onto younger classes as the year progresses. The children are eager to look after the 4 plants and then pass them onto ‘future generations’.
The high-quality geography education at St Bart’s inspires in pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives. The Year 5 and 6 children found out about how goods and services are traded around the world. They explored the UK's trade links today and in the past, finding out about goods imported and exported as well as the methods of transport used. They learnt about the benefits of trading internationally and the risks to this area. The children also learnt about fair trade and why it is important in a global market. The children went on a school trip to Historic Chatham Dockyard where they visited a ropery and made rope together.
We are proud that our pupils have links with a number of countries around the world and they approach geography lessons with enthusiasm, keen to learn more about the world around them. We believe that we are beautifully made in the image and likeness of God and that each one of us is unique. God created us as one global family, called to support our brothers and sisters. We are encouraged to ask, ‘Who is our neighbour?’ We think how we can serve the local, national and global communities of which we are a part.
Geography is taught individually but plays a key role in the achievement of the learning aims of the RE curriculum. We believe that the Earth is our common home and that we should use its resources wisely. It is our Christian vocation to care for creation, live sustainably and enhance the wellbeing of our planet. Children who attend Geography Club planted some tulips and trees on our playground as they understand the rights and responsibilities everyone have as global citizens.
St Josephine’s class went on a school visit to Horton Kirby to explore local settlements. This included the children working in groups to create their own mini settlements, using a tray and adding soil, leaves, lego bricks so as to represent physical as well as human features, such as trees and houses. As part of the English curriculum, they read and discussed the text ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Balit. The children were then encouraged to use their senses to describe what it was like in peaceful Pompeii on a normal day. Drama in the style of a conscience alley was explored with the children imagining how the characters, Tranio and Livia felt as the boat floats away from Pompeii, just before the eruption. The children were particularly engaged through using the parachute in the playground to be each part of the volcano’s eruption sequence. For example, the children held the edges of the parachute and shook vigorously to be the erupting flames, they then sat inside and used the parachute to be the cloud of ash overhead, mushrooming above them and falling to cover everyone. Finally, the children sat outside again and made rippling movements for the flowing lava. Following the culmination of these varied activities, the children wrote a detailed descriptive recount of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, focussing particularly on the vocabulary to describe the senses and the thoughts and feelings of the two main characters.
As part of St Peter’s enrichment day – HOW PLANES FLY- each child created a UK passport and Flight Boarding Pass choosing a place of destination. They had so much fun looking at digital maps to find interesting countries and some of them decided to fly to Nigeria, Spain or Poland.
St Paul's, St George's and St Peter's classes have been studying polar regions in their Geography lessons in the Autumn term. They learnt about where they are located on a map as well as some of the physical features such as glaciers. They also learnt about some of the towns found in the Arctic and they compared these to London. Finally, they used all that they have learnt this term to make some fantastic shoe box habitats - even including a brilliant penguin model made out of clay! The children have also learnt about climate change. Due to climate change, the polar ice caps are melting as the regions become warmer. They have learnt how people and animals are affected by climate change. Many indigenous people rely on local wildlife, like fish and reindeer, as the main part of their diet. As the number of animals decreases, the amount of available food also goes down. The melting ice is also causing sea levels to rise, which in turn causes flooding.
