In Key Stage 2 geography your child will study a variety of people, places and environments in the UK and abroad, and start to make links between different places in the world.

Children learn about the effect people have on the environment and how they are in turn affected by it.

Your child will be encouraged to ask lots of questions about geography. For example, they may ask, “Why is the landscape shaped like this?”, “Why is the temperature different in one place from another?”, and “How do people feel about plans to build a runway near to where they live?”

Learning takes place both inside and outside of the classroom to provide children with opportunities to use geographical skills and resources such as maps, atlases, aerial photographs and ICT, to answer these questions.

Your child will learn the vocabulary needed to talk about geographical ideas.

Lesson examples

Here are some examples of lessons from some schools:

• Year 3 pupils watch a news programme about a river that burst its banks, resulting in a controversial tree clearance operation. They use image-editing software to produce a poster advertising a conservation campaign to protect the trees.

• On a year 4 residential trip to a village in Ilam, the pupils investigate the difference between living in a village and a town. They list the physical and human features that give Ilam its character using appropriate vocabulary, such as ‘river flowing’ and ‘twisty roads’.

• A year 5 class express what they have learnt about the movements of water in a river system through dance. The class split up in to small groups and use music and props to portray a particular stage of the river. 

• After looking at the way maps are used in storybooks, a year 6 class is given the task of designing their own ‘map story’ in groups of twos or threes. They come up with titles such as The chocolate treasure and The stone of doom.

Help your child at home

• Expose your child to as wide a range of places and cultures as you can. Remember, you can do this through pictures, films and exhibitions, as well as travel.

• Provide your child with a map, atlas or globe and encourage them to use them to find out more about places and environments. Which countries have hot or cold climates? Can your child identify where different people come from, perhaps children in their class?

• Find the geography in your home. Where in the world did your furniture, ornaments or kitchenware come from?

• Discover where the fruits and vegetables in your supermarket originate from. Ask why certain foods cannot naturally grow in the UK’s climate. How might farming modify this?

• Visit the Natural History Museum and learn more about things, such as dramatic rock formations and how they came into being. Find out how the Himalayas were formed, and discover how stones change shape as they travel.

• Choose five local geographical topics and find out more about them. Ideas include traffic, development, population, recycling and local history.

• Use news, documentaries and other television programmes to raise and discuss issues such as poverty, global warming and migration. What are the conflicting viewpoints? Can you see the issues from each viewpoint?