At Chelford CE Primary School, we value the contribution that an inspiring and engaging geography curriculum can have in expanding the minds, broadening the experiences, and lifting the future aspirations of our pupils. In designing our geography curriculum, our intention is to stir pupils’ curiosity and provoke their sense of awe and wonder through a variety of exciting and immersive learning experiences. Ultimately, our ambitions are to expand pupils’ understanding of the relationship between humanity and our natural world so that they are motivated to make a positive contribution on a local, national and international scale.

In this unit of study, children will explore Chelford and learn what it is about the area that makes it a village community. In doing so, they will study features of a village, town and city and make comparisons from their lived experience.

A key part of this unit is to recognise the information represented in a map and how this can be used to help us, the use of keys, and how maps can be used to gain an insight into a particular area. Children will be given the opportunity to read and draw their own maps and explore the school grounds using their mapping skills! They will also use maps to develop their understanding of 4-point compass directions using navigational language. This will be explored in the Early Years through the development of pupils’ directional and positional language.

Children are introduced to human and physical geography during this topic, classifying a number of different features found in their locality - the advantage being that basing their understanding in pupils’ lived experience (locality) enablesnthem to detect such features in their everyday lives beyond the classroom setting.

Pupils will also develop their geographic enquiry skills through the use of collecting data when evaluating how pupils of Chelford CE Primary School travel to school. They will develop their use of presentation skills when sharing the findings of their enquiry.

me and my village.pdf

The Class 2 topic ‘Me and the United Kingdom’ focuses on two discrete units: a geographical unit and a historical unit.

Locational knowledge: in this geographical study, children will learn about the countries that make up the United Kingdom. They will learn to recognise the flags of these nations and develop some key ‘sticky’ knowledge such as the names of capital cities.

Pupil will learn that the United Kingdom comprises of islands separated from mainland Europe by the English Channel and the North Sea. They will recognise the meaning of key terms such as ‘coastline’, which will be explored further through a class visit to Formby Beach.

Children will recognise that the climate in the United Kingdom is seasonal and identify how the weather changes depending on the time of year. They will link this knowledge to different activities that people enjoy.

Pupils will begin to explore physical and human geographical features in each of the 4 countries of the United Kingdom.

me and the united kingdom geography .pdf

Children begin by exploring ‘hot and cold’ through their lived experience which provides an opportunity to recap on the UK seasons - winter being the coldest season and summer being the hottest season. Children learn that although there are seasons in the UK, some places in the world are always hot and some places are always cold.

Children explore hot and cold places in simplistic terms - hot places being those located close to the equator and cold places being located in the polar regions: Arctic Circle and Antarctica. Children will learn that the Arctic Circle is a floating mass of ice located at the North Pole and Antarctica is a continent, with a large area of ice, located at the South Pole. Children will learn about the different wildlife found at both poles and in the hot Sahara Desert.

To develop a greater understanding of the impact that living in harsh climates can present, the children will study the Inuit - a group of indigenous people who have lived in the polar regions of Canada, Alaska, Greenland and Russia. They will then use this knowledge to compare the lives of the Inuit to the lives of people living in the UK, once again, using their lived experience as a point of reference.

hot and cold.pdf

The topic ‘Europe and the United Kingdom’ has been designed to build upon pupils’ geographical knowledge of the United Kingdom, developed in Class 1, to extend across the continent of Europe.

Children’s prior learning is revisited, ensuring that they recap the 7 continents and 5 oceans of the world and the countries and capital cities comprising the United Kingdom. Some pupils will also recap on what they have studied in Y2 - that the UK enjoys a temperate climate and is located in the Northern Hemisphere.

In extending their knowledge of the physical geographical features of the UK, children will learn the names and locations of key cities on a UK map. They will plot some of the main rivers on a map of the UK and recognise key mountainous areas such as the Grampian Highlands, Pennines and Snowdonia.

Pupils will recognise that the UK is one of around 46 countries in Europe. They will identify key European countries and capital cities on a map and identify significant topography features - including mountain ranges such as the Alps, Pyrenees, Carpathians and Balkans. They will also label significant European rivers such as: Danube, Seine, Loire, Po, Rhine and Rhone.

Children will also complete a volcano study as part of this unit of work. They will begin by exploring the correlation between the location of the world’s volcanoes and tectonic plate boundaries, before recognising how volcanoes are formed, using key geographical language. Pupils will compare different types of volcanoes: shield and stratovolcano and those that are active, dormant and extinct. Pupils will complete a study of Mount Etna, learning about the advantages and disadvantages that living close to a volcano can present.

europe and uk.pdf

Our Rivers and Canals topic is designed to provide the opportunity for pupils to explore the different types of waterways - those created by nature and those by man.

Children will make reference to previous / future learning on Ancient Civilisations by exploring how vital a river was to our ancestors for sanitation, drinking, transportation, irrigation and food. They will recognise some names of key rivers from this study. They will also build on geographical language developed in Class 1: rivers, oceans, seas etc...Children will also know some things about the River Thames from work on The Great Fire of London.

Children learn about the distinction between a river and a canal and the advantages of building canals for transport and trade.

They will learn about the life of a river from its source to where it meets the ocean, developing their use of subject specific language and vocabulary to explain their understanding. They will learn that the route of a river changes over time as river banks erode and silt is deposited.

Children will learn about the positive and negative impacts of flooding and how vital this was to our early ancestors in providing fertile land to grow crops.

In developing pupils factual knowledge, they will learn of some key river facts such as the longest rivers in the world and will learn about the significant canals: Panama Canal and Suez Canal.

rivers and canals.pdf

As part of this All Around the World unit, children will use of a range of different maps, in both print and on-screen, and explore digital resources to identify the names, locations and features of different countries and continents. A key part of this unit, is recognising that the Earth is a sphere and relating this knowledge to 2D maps.

Children will learn learn about different climate zones and biomes, identifying the different zones on world maps and developing an awareness of their basic features. They will learn about the different time zones in the world, identifying GMT as the time zone of the United Kingdom. In developing such knowledge, they will be introduced to new language relating to longitude and latitude.

Over their course of study through the Chelford Curriculum, children undertake significant units of study on the United Kingdom (Class 1), United Kingdom and Europe (Class 2), South America (Class 3) and North America (Class 3). Therefore, in order to develop an increased knowledge and geographical features of other world continents, children will focus on identifying the names and locations of some of the countries in Asia, Africa and Australia.

all around the world.pdf

In this unit of study, children again an insight into the geographical features of South America, exploring two key themes:

Deforestation: Exploring reasons why deforestation occurs and the short-term and long-term consequences to the environment and habitats that rely on the rainforest eco-system.
As part of this learning, children will experience an immersive virtual reality workshop that will enable them to explore the various different features of a rainforest environment and learn about the different species of animal and plant life that call the Amazon home.

Children will also learn about the work of the Rainforest Alliance and how the organisation helps to support businesses and economic growth in a sustainable and ethical manner.

Mountains: Recognising how mountains are formed through a study of the world’s longest mountain range - The Andes. Children will learn about the processes involved in the formation of the Andes and recognise the highest peak is Aconcagua in Argentina. As part of their Andes study, children will learn about the natural resources that are mined from the area and the use of hydro-electric dams in helping provide sustainable forms of energy.

Children will also develop their locational knowledge to recognise key countries, capital cities, rivers, mountains and forests found in South America. In addition, they will identify the population of different countries - recognising that Brazil is by some distance the most highly-populated country - and also apply their knowledge of the European conquistadors from learning in history to suggest reasons for the main languages spoken in different South American countries.

south america.pdf

In this unit of study, pupils learn how to plan, conduct and evaluate a geographical investigation exploring litter in their locality and using the results of their findings to present recommendations to members of the Chelford Parish Council. This ‘real life’ project offers the opportunity for children to experience geography in action - evaluation of geographically-rooted enquiry to assess and improve an issue. In addition, by providing children the opportunity to make an enhancement to their local environment, firstly through litter collection and then in presenting their findings to members of the Chelford Village Council, our intention is to build pupils’ courages advocacy and help to instil the values of community, service and protecting the natural world.

Alongside this field work study, children will also develop their map reading skills, making use of Ordinate Survey maps of our local area. By the end of the unit of study, they will know some of the key OS map symbols and know how to use and read six-digit grid references. Children will also know the significant of counter lines on OS maps and use samples to create 2D maps independently, and 3D models collaboratively, when interpreting map data.

chelford a local study.pdf