The Geographical Association

Primary

Geography

This unit provides a foundation for 'Local area: Where do we live?', which extends geographical investigation to the immediate locality, and for 'Local area: routes and maps' which investigates a specific land use, play areas. It lays the foundation for fieldwork investigations in the local area in 'Local area: how is our place special?' and a contrasting non-European locality.

Local area: where do we live?

This unit builds on explorations of the local area in EYFS,  focusing on the school site as a place. It develops basic geographical vocabulary and simple mapwork and fieldwork skills.

Our school

Our school from above

Our school in ten photos

Jobs in our school

Describing locations 

Fieldwork: Autumn in the school grounds

Land use and settlement

Local area

Local area: where do we go to school?

This unit links to 'Life in a capital city: London/Cardiff', in which a capital city of the UK is explored as a significant place in our country.

Life in a capital city: London/Cardiff

The unit extends understanding about the local area and the characteristics and features of place explored in units 'Local area: Where do we go to school?', 'Local area: Where do we live?', 'Seasons: How does the weather change through the year?' and 'Local area: Routes and maps where we play' to a national scale.

Local to global: how can we identify special places?

The UK and its surrounding seas

The countries and capital cities of the UK

Geographical features in Scotland

Geographical features in England

Geographical features in Wales

Geographical features in Northern Ireland

Diversity

Natural resources

The UK and regions

Water and rivers

The UK: what kind of place is it?

The idea of land use is developed in more depth in 'Settlements: Where do people live and why?' where pupils will look at settlement patterns and make links between human and physical landscapes.

Settlements: where do people live and why?

This unit builds on 'Local area: Why is (our place) special?' and other previous locality studies to develop pupils' ideas of features and the patterns of land use in the local area, and more widely in the UK, consolidating and developing what was learnt about the UK in 'The UK: What kind of place is is?'.

Local area: why is (our place) special?

UK human and physical features

Land use in the locality

Farming in the UK

Different types of land use in the UK

Using grid references to identify land use

Changing land use

Economic activity

Human processes

Physical processes

Land use: how diverse are local and UK landscapes?

This unit enables pupils to challenge the single story and think about the complexity of people and place in the study of the Lake District and in Europe ('Europe: How diverse are its landscapes and places?'). 

UK region: why is the Lake District a national park?

This builds on pupils' knowledge of the UK in 'Land use: How diverse are local and UK landscapes?' and settlements in 'Settlements: Where do people live and why?' to look outwards and make connections with the diversity of the people of the UK and the wider world. 

Regions and counties of the UK

Images of the UK

Where people live in the UK

The UK: Moving in, moving out

The impacts of the UK's changing population

Revealing the UK's global links

Interconnection

The UK: who are we? 

This unit prepares the ground for learning about the Amazon biome in depth and thinking about the importance of forests globally, also for 'Energy: How do we power the world?' thinking how we use energy globally and understanding the role that trees play. 

South America: why does the Amazon matter?

This unit develops local area investigation 'Local area: What needs changing?' and builds on what has been learnt through a focus on trees and green spaces.

Local area: what needs changing?

The benefits of trees

Mapping trees locally

Mapping changes in the UK's forests

Global trees and forests

Mapping changes in forests around the world

Planning tree planting in the local area

Sustainability

Local and global: why are trees and forests important?

This unit provides a foundation for subsequent work in KS3.

This unit builds on 'Climate zones: What are they and why do they matter?', and also on 'Europe: How diverse are its landscapes and places'' and 'The Americas: How diverse are its places and landscapes?', which sequentially build pupils’ knowledge of the importance and location of significant lines of longitude and latitude on planet Earth, and deepens their understanding of time zones.

Climate zones: what are they and why do they matter?

Day and night

Longitude

Time zones around the world

Travel and time

Earth geometry

Time zones: can we time travel on planet Earth?

This unit provides a foundation for 'Local area: Routes and maps', which focuses on investigating a specific land use - play areas. It lays the foundation for subsequent fieldwork investigations in the local area in 'Local area: how is (our place) special?', and a contrasting non-European locality.

Local area: how do we read maps and plan routes?

This unit builds on 'Local area: Where do we go to school?', which focuses on the school site as a place, by extending the area of investigation into the local area. It develops basic geographical vocabulary and simple mapwork and fieldwork skills, focusing on human geographical features such as local buildings, land use and  journeys.

Our homes

Our local area

The street outside our school

Buildings and features near our school

A survey of how we get to school 

Mapping our journey to school

This unit supports pupils' enquiry about the uniqueness of place when they investigate their own locality through fieldwork in 'Local area: Why is (our place) special?' and compare this with a locality overseas in 'Contrasting locality: what is it like to live in Jamaica?'.

This unit deepens pupils' understanding of the UK in 'The UK: What kind of place is it?' by zooming in to explore its capital city, London, and how it is linked to other parts of the UK and the wider world.

Locating Cardiff

Cardiff as a capital city 

Cardiff travel and transport

The River Taff

Cardiff parks and green spaces 

Planning a day out in Cardiff

What is life like in Cardiff?

Locating London

London as a capital city

London travel and transport

London parks and green spaces

The River Thames

Planning a day out in London

What is life like in London?

Links to 'Rivers: What, where and how?' where knowledge of the water cycle can be applied, and to 'Climate zones: What are they and why do they matter?', where the distribution of rainfall can be used along with temperature to understand global patterns.

Rivers: what's special about them? 

Links to 'Cold places: What is it like at the North and South Poles?' and 'Hot places: What is it like near the Equator?', and to work on weather and distribution of rainfall and temperature.

Cold places: what is it like at the North and South Poles?

The water cycle

Water flow around the school

Water around the world

Water supply and demand in the UK

Water ownership

Water inequalities

Climate and weather

The water cycle: why is it important? 

This unit provides a foundation for 'UK region: Why is the Lake District a National Park?', which investigates the physical and human geography of the Lake District as a UK mountainous region, and 'Earthquakes: How do they change the world?', which focuses on earthquakes and their impact. 

This unit builds on 'Rivers: What. where and how?', which focuses on rivers as a key aspect of physical geography. This unit extends and deepens pupils’ understanding of physical geography processes by investigating the basic structure of Planet Earth, the location and key features of major mountain ranges and volcanoes, how they change, and their significance for people’s lives.

The formation of mountains

Mountains and their features

The UK's peaks

Volcanoes and their features

Living near volcanoes

The impact of eruptions: Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland 

Mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes

Mountains and volcanoes: what, where and why?

This unit supports 'South America: Why does the Amazon matter?' and learning about why the Amazon matters, with its vast natural resources of water, forests and biodiversity, and to 'Energy: How do we power the world?', which explores energy in more detail.

This builds on 'Local area: Why are trees and forests important?', learning about the value of trees as a natural resource in the local area to learn about different types of natural resources globally, their unequal distribution, and some of the threats they face or pose.

Natural resources 

Renewable and non-renewable energy sources

Food

Minerals

Wood

Water

Natural resources: what are they, where are they found, why are they important?

This unit provides a foundation for 'Coasts: Diversity and change', which investigates very different physical processes and their impact on people and the environment.

Coasts: what happens where the land meets the sea?

This builds on 'Mountains and volcanoes: What, where and why?', extending and deepening pupils’ understanding of Earth processes, focusing on tectonic plates, earthquakes and their impact on people and the environment. 

The causes of earthquakes

What happens in an earthquake?

Location and distribution of earthquakes

Earthquakes and tsunamis: Honshu, Japan 2011

The impact of earthquakes

People and earthquakes; Turkey 2023

Earthquakes: how do they change the world?

This unit builds basic knowledge needed to engage with the next unit 'Seasons' where pupils will need to talk about the world and some knowledge of its basic geometry.

Seasons: how does the weather change through the year?

This unit builds on pupils' knowledge of the world from their experiences in EYFS and their perceptions from other media and first hand experiences and expands their view of the local area as studied in 'Local area: Where do we go to school?' and 'Local area: Where do we live?' to a global scale.

Earth view: using globes and satellite images

Mapping the world: locating the continents

The world's five oceans

Mountains and rivers

Earth and the seasons

Our wonderful world and its landmarks

The UK's place in the world

Continents and oceans: what can we find out about the world?

It then leads on to examine this same scale but by investigating hot places in 'Hot places: What is it like near the Equator?'. This unit also links to future understanding of land use and settlement, and builds on Earth Geometry by establishing familiarity with the Polar Circles here and with the Equator in 'Hot places: What is it like near the Equator?'.

Hot places: where are they and what are they like?

links to work done in and around the school ground on weather and develops the idea of temperature variations and extreme cold on a global scale. 

The world's cold places

Locating the North and South Poles

The North Pole and the Arctic

The South Pole and the Antarctic

Arctic wildlife

Antarctic wildlife

Living in the Arctic

Living in the Antarctic

This unit links to 'Climate zones: What are they and why do they matter?' in which the influence of climate on global geographies and environmental regions is developed with reference to understanding of the water cycle and rivers.

This unit builds on 'The water cycle: why is it important?' and develops this understanding further to investigate where water goes to and to look at where and why the major rivers are located and how local rivers are affected by weather variations. 

Introducing rivers

River processes and landforms

The river's journey

Flooding rivers

Flooding impacts and solutions

Rivers in the UK

Rivers in Europe

Mighty rivers of the world

This unit provides a foundation for understanding, and making comparisons with, a region of Northern Italy, which also boasts mountains and lakes.

Europe: what is it like to live in Northern Italy? 

This unit builds on 'The UK: Who are we?' and 'Mountains and volcanoes: What, where and why?' to give pupils the contextual understanding to engage with this regional study of the Lake District, its landscape and its identity as a National Park.

Introducing the Lake District

Our National Parks

The landscape of the Lake District

Lake District weather and climate

Working in the Lake District

Pressure on the National Park

This unit provides a foundation for 'South America: Why does the Amazon matter?', which extends and deepens pupils’ understanding of physical and human geography and processes through a case study of the Amazon as a region of Brazil.

This unit builds directly on 'Europe: How diverse are its landscapes and places?', which focuses on the diverse people and landscapes of Europe, as well as earlier work in 'Contrasting locality: What is it like to live in (named location) in Jamaica?', which extends and deepens pupils’ understanding of physical and human geography and processes.

Europe: how diverse are its landscapes and places?

Using maps to locate countries in North and South America

Climate of North and South America

Physical geography of North and South America

Human geography of North and South America

Economic activities of North and South America

Planning a journey through the Americas

Americas and regions

North and South America: how diverse are their places and landscapes?

This unit provides a foundation for 'Global trade: How do we get our stuff?'.

Global trade: how do we get our stuff?

It builds on 'South America: Why does the Amazon matter?', 'Land use: How diverse are local and UK landscapes?', 'UK region: Why is the Lake District a National Park?' and 'Europe: How diverse are its landscapes and places?', extending and deepening pupils’ understanding of economic activities through investigating food production, processing, distribution and consumption at a range of scales.  

Subject

School phase

KS1 & KS2 Geography

Unit sequence

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Year group

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