Key Stage 2 Geography – the curriculum

In geography lessons in KS2, children are taught to:

• Locate the world's countries, noting key physical and human characteristics.
• Locate the counties and cities of the United Kingdom and look at hills, mountains, coasts and rivers and understand how some of these aspects have changed over time.

• Identify the position and significance of latitude, longitude, Equator, Northern Hemisphere, Southern Hemisphere, the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, Arctic and Antarctic Circle, the Prime/Greenwich Meridian and time zones.
• Compare the physical and human geography of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, a European country and a region within North or South America.
• Understand physical geography including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes and the water cycle.
• Understand human geography including types of settlement and land use, economic activity and distribution of food, minerals and water.
• Use maps, atlases, globes and digital/computer mapping to locate countries.
• Use the eight points of a compass, four- and six-figure grid references, symbols and key.
• Use fieldwork to observe, measure, record and present the human and physical features in the local area.

• 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.