Westminster Institute of Education
CHILDREN, PLACE
AND ENVIRONMENT
Professor Simon Catling
Six Sections
• Children bring their experience of the world into
school from the day they arrive
• Children’s experience of places appears to be
changing
• Children have perspectives on their experience in
their school grounds
• Children live in the wider world and it impacts on their
lives
• The context of primary geography
• Moving forward: Five questions
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The youngest children coming into school
• Their awareness of the features and layout of
aspects of the local environment
• Their awareness of the wider environment
• Their awareness of environmental matters
• Their representations of places
• Their imagining of ‘being in places and events’
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Children’s changing direct experience of
places
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Learning about places
Children’s local knowledge
Sites of personal and social attachment
Place use and avoidance
• Children’s safety in the environment
• Declining accessible spaces
• Changing modes of travel
• Teachers’ knowledge about the local area
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Children in school playgrounds
• Children’s views on their school playgrounds
• Playgrounds children desire
• Children’s perspectives on teachers’ values
• Creating better school playgrounds
• Children’s active involvement
• Children’s interest in their own playground needs
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Children in the wider world
• Children live in particular places, and places differ
• Children are a market
• The reality of children’s lives across the world is not
always comfortable
• Increasingly, children travel abroad
• The world ‘beyond home’ affects children’s lives
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The context for primary geography
• Primary geography in trouble
• Views of geography are at odds with perspectives on
children’s learning
• Primary geography’s needs
• Good primary geography exists and should be
emulated
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Moving forward: Five questions
• Does the whole child’s experience and education and thus geographical education - matter?
• What is the confidence issue about geography for
primary teachers?
• Has serious thought been given to the school as a
place and environment for children?
• Can we really avoid helping children to understand
the nature and impact of the world about us?
• Should we rethink the basis for our primary
geography curriculum?
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10 suggested threads for a primary
geography curriculum
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Me in the world
Neighbourhood and community
Connecting with the wider world
Other people, places and me
Seeing and representing the world
Encountering ‘big issues’
Seeing change and its effects
Caring for the world
Heading for the future
The world today - near and far
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In conclusion
• Children bring place and environmental experience
into school
• Think more of school as a place and environment
• We need to engage with children about the benefits
and issues in the world, locally and globally
• Our responsibilities in primary schools is to teach
geography well and have high expectations
• It is done; we can all do it
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