In Geography lessons our children gain an understanding of places and environments. At St Aidan's Children learn about their local area and compare their lives here with those in other regions of the United Kingdom and the rest of the world. The children learn how to draw and interpret maps. They develop a range of investigative and problem-solving skills.

As children study geography, they encounter different societies and cultures. It can inspire them to think about their own place in the world, their values and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment. Embedded in our geography teaching, as it is in the ethos of the school, is an emphasis on the importance of sustainability for the future of mankind. Geography teaching begins in the foundation stage, as an integral part of the topic work covered during the year. Planning for this subject is closely related to the Early Learning Goals, which develops a child's knowledge and understanding of the world through activities such as collecting postcards from different places, singing songs from around the world, learning to speak some basic French, or investigating what makes a ‘good' playground.

As the children move into KS1 they begin to investigate the school environment and the local area in more detail. Field work is an integral part of our Geography teaching and we get all children to carry out investigations into the local environment; we take the children on local area walks where they look closely at the shops and services they find there.

In KS2 the children begin to look at other countries around the world, comparing and contrasting them with their own area. At St Aidan's we encourage the children to carry out enhancement activities based on a country they choose that interests them. In our library we have a good supply of geography topic books and a range of educational software to support their research.

In year 6 the children visit Pendarren Education Centre in Wales. Our fantastic international links have also enabled many Year 6 children to visit schools in Germany, Finland and France. With the arrival of up-to-the-minute Digi-blue cameras, the children are able to record their experiences and analyse them on their return to school.