Geography

At Cookridge Holy Trinity Primary School, as an inclusive school, we aim to give all children a high quality geography education which inspires a curiosity and fascination about the world around them. “Teaching should equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes.”

(National Curriculum in England, Geography programme of study, 2013)

Aims

As a school our goal is to cover the following National Curriculum aims in an engaging and meaningful way for every child:

Develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes.
Understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time.
are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
- Collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes.
- Interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS).
- Communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length.

(National Curriculum in England, Geography programme of study, 2014)

Well done to all children at Cookridge Holy Trinity who have documented their teddy’s travels during the summer holidays! Children from all year groups across the school completed passports and took photographs of their travelling teddy bears, along with information about the activities they took part in, food and drink they have tried and new languages they have spoken. Here are a few mounted on display.

Becoming an Eco School

At Cookridge Holy Trinity Primary, we encourage all children to develop an awareness of environmental topics in the classroom that can impact our world. We provide children with an opportunity to take leadership of environmental issues in our school and local community. The Eco Schools programme allows schools to embark on a path towards improving both the environment in both school and the local community while at the same time having a positive impact on the lives of pupils, their families and school staff.

The Green Flag Award

To achieve the Green Flag award, it is essential for our pupils and Geography Coordinator (Miss Hickey) to complete the Eco School seven steps framework. The Eco Schools seven steps is a series of measures to help schools maximise the success of their Eco Schools ambitions. To become a successful Eco School, the first step is to elect an effective Eco Committee. The active involvement of staff and pupils is vital in the programme. At Cookridge Holy Trinity, we elected representatives from Years 1 – 6 who completed an ‘Eco Warrior’ application form that was returned to our Geography Coordinator.

The Eco Warriors frequently meet to discuss current issues around the 10 elements of the Eco School and how they are addressed in school. The 10 elements that our school are addressing are:

Energy
Water
Waste
Litter
Global Perspectives
Healthy Living
School Grounds
Biodiversity
Transport
Marine

We encourage our pupils to take active leadership in changes that they want to make in our school. We completed an environmental review to assess and evaluate our schools sustainability. Our environmental review allows our pupils to generate an idea of what our school needs to become more sustainable and environmentally friendly. After completing our environmental review, our Eco Warriors created an action plan which is used to identify priority elements that need to be developed within our school. We used this action plan to generate 3 targets that can be tackled throughout the school year. To ensure that sustainability is truly integrated into our curriculum, it is imperative that environmental issues are taught throughout our History, Geography and Science lessons. Our Eco Warrior updates on our eco journey can be found on our display in school!

Meet our new Eco Warriors!

Our aim is to look after our planet and keep all living things safe. We want to make a difference in promoting eco-friendly behaviours and protecting our wildlife.”

The Eco Warrior Team

Raising Money for Leeds Friends of the Earth Charity

The Eco Warriors managed to raise an incredible £25 at the school Christmas Fayre selling eco Christmas decorations. We have posted the cheque and a letter telling Leeds Friends of the Earth all about it!

The Eco Warriors have conducted an energy inspection around school to identify wasteful energy. We discussed ways to improve this, such as switching off classroom lights, switching off computers and Promethean boards when not in use and making sure all doors are closed when the heating is on.

The Eco warriors sold eco-friendly Christmas tree decorations to raise money for Leeds Friends of the Earth charity at our Christmas fair! The warriors did a fantastic job at selling them all to parents and lots of money was raised! Well done the Eco Team!

The Eco Warriors have been making some eco tree decorations to sell at the Christmas fayre on December 6th. All money raised will be donated to the environmental charity, “Leeds Friends of the Earth.”

The Eco Warriors have designed posters promoting recycling after we discussed the high use of plastic in society, pollution and landfill sites. We photocopied the posters and put them up around school for all visitors, staff and children to see!

Working alongside Holy Trinity’s gardening club, the Eco Warriors have been collecting the food waste from the playground at playtime to put into the compost. We hope that we will then be able to grow our own produce and use in the school kitchen by Mrs Mann our head cook!