Welcome to our Geography page. Here you can find lots of information about science across our school.
Statement of Intent
At Bowburn Primary School we believe that Geography helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspects of the world. Children are encouraged to develop a greater understanding and knowledge of the world, as well as their place in it. The geography curriculum at Bowburn Primary School enables children to develop knowledge and skills that are transferable to other curriculum areas and which can and are used to promote their spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject, which develops an understanding of concepts, knowledge and skills. We seek to inspire in children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people which will remain with them for the rest of their lives.
Useful Documents
Geography Subject Yearly Overview
Geography Skills and Knowledge Progression
Geography at Bowburn
Nursery
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- Our Nursery children have carried out activities relating to the book ‘Going on a Bear Hunt’. The children looked at video clips of white bears and their habitat and discussed where pandas are from in the world.
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- The book ‘Looking Down’ enabled our children to recognise some environments that are different from the one in which they live. It introduced basic maps from a bird’s eye view.
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- PSCO Claire brought police dogs ‘Jet’ and ‘Ben’ to visit the children. Claire told the children about the things police do and how they help us. The children developed their understanding of different occupations.
Reception
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- The children went on an Autumn walk in our local area where they described what they could see, hear and feel while outside and explore the natural world around them.
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- We used Google street view to look at different houses and shops in our village. The children recognised familiar places and discussed what they knew.
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- Learning about ‘Where We Live’ was very interesting. We talked about how things were in the past and compared them to now.
Year 1
Enquiry Questions:
- What is my place like?
- What can I find in the corner or my world?
- What is my country like?
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- We had fun learning about what a ‘bird’s eye view’ is!
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- We then used bird’s eye photos to create a classroom plan.
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- We found our way around school with a map and added basic details to a pro forma map. We discussed distance and direction as we move around as well as our favourite places in school.
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- We used basic fieldwork approaches in this lesson using: question – observe – collect – describe. We began with an aerial photograph of the school grounds and began to gather ideas what we would find outside. We used a base map with very simple detail on. The children explored our school grounds and found what was at each point.
Year 2
Enquiry Questions:
- Why is my world wonderful?
- Whatever Next?
- Where shall we go and what might we see on holiday?
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- Year 2 named the continents by looking at the satellite image of the Earth from space and identified their shapes. Looking at the satellite images, the children spotted lakes, green areas, sandy areas and strange shapes on the coastline.
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- Year 2 focused on ‘amazing’ places around the world. As a class, we looked at landmarks of Durham Cathedral, Mount Etna (Europe), The Statue of Liberty and Grand Canyon (North America), The Amazon Rainforest, Machu Picchu (South America), Victoria Falls and the Pyramids (Africa), Mount Everest and The Great Wall of China, (Asia), Halley VI Research Base and Emperor Penguins (Antarctica) Ayres Rock and Sydney Opera House (Oceania). The children then identified if the image represented human features or physical features.
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- Using an atlas and a world map to record, the children identified the major rivers in the world. The children then identified a river on each continent.
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- The children worked together to research human and physical landmarks around the world, including the 7 wonders.
Year 3
Enquiry Questions:
- Is the UK the same everywhere?
- Why do we have cities?
- Why is the North East so special?
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- Using satellite images, the children answered questions about the UK. Our teacher hovered over the different regions using directional language, compass direction, as they moved around the map. We discussed relief (the shape of the land), the shapes at the coastline, hills, rivers, vegetation and where people live.
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- Using satellite images, the children answered questions about the UK. Our teacher hovered over the different regions using directional language, compass direction, as they moved around the map. We discussed relief (the shape of the land), the shapes at the coastline, hills, rivers, vegetation and where people live.
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- We set up a map from memory exercise to support pupils engaging in detailed observation of the map of the physical features of the UK. We used a large map of the UK showing the key physical features was placed so that it cannot be seen by the whole class. Each group had an enlarged blank base map of the UK and followed instructions
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- One at a time, the children could view the UK map for 30 seconds. In that time they needed to spot where the PENNINE hills were and be ready to add them to their group map when they went back to their groups. The children then carried out the same task for The Grampian Mountains, The Cambrian Mountains, The Cumbrian Mountains, The Cheviot Hills, The Antrim Mountains, The River Severn, River Thames, River Tyne, River Forth, River Wye, Ben Nevis, Snowden, Scafell Pike. The children then wrote some sentences which described the location of the mountains in the UK.
Year 4
Enquiry Questions:
- What happens when land meets sea?
- What can we discover about Europe?
- Why does Italy shake and roar?
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- We used a map of the UK to locate: Main roads around cities and towns, capital cities, railway links and rivers.
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- We then focused on a local coastline (Seaton Carew) and used a map to identify key features.
We learnt about the processes which shape our UK coastline, including:
- Hydraulic action: Waves push air into cracks.
- Atrision: Rocks and stones bang together in the sea.
- Abrasion: Rocks carried by the sea smash against the coast.
- Solution: Chemicals in the water dissolve the rock.
We also learnt about longshore drift and how it can damage our beaches without protection.
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- We did a case study on Norfolk village and learnt how residents set up a charity to prevent their homes from disappearing into the sea. The Happisburgh campaign welcomed donations to put soft and hard engineering tactics in place to prevent coastal erosion.
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- We went on a fieldtrip to Seaham beach. Prior to the visit, the children carried out a risk assessment, identifying ways to reduce risks. On our trip, we looked for evidence of erosion and items of deposited materials. We measured pebble size as we moved down the beach to the sea and we measured long shore drift. We observed and measured the quality of the environment using an emoji survey. Then we investigated how well erosion is managed at Seaham beach. We spotted groynes and rock armour which was used.
‘Dredging’ is one example of soft engineering that is used on our UK beaches. Some examples of engineering procedures include using a sea wall, rock armour, gabians and groynes.
Year 5
Enquiry Questions:
- What shapes my world?
- Where can we go? Fantastic journeys
- Where has my food come from?
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- We then used bird’s eye photos to create a classroom plan.
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- The children were introduced to different landforms and landscapes. The children were given causes of the shapes of the land to vote for – caused by the wind and rain, caused by a volcano, caused by an earthquake, caused by a river flowing, caused by waves, caused by ice pressing down on the rock, caused by people’s actions. The pupils votes for what they thought caused each landform. In this lesson they found out! We used photographs with the matched information cards below to look at examples of different shapes that are found on the land landforms caused by physical and human processes. We then placed these all around our world map and labelled them with ICE, TECTONIC, WEATHER, RIVER, HUMANS, WAVES.
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- The children learnt that around the UK, there are many clues that ice and glaciers once covered most of the country. 40,000 years ago, most of the country was covered by heavy ice sheets and glaciers. We also found clues to this using OS maps.
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- The 7 plates that make up the crust of the Earth are unstable, and each plate moves. Where plates meet, these are the plate boundaries and at these boundaries’ changes can happen. There are movements all the time. The class were shown a video clip of the seismic monitoring service. We discussed what we could see happening, whether there is a lot of activity (volcano, earthquakes). We looked at movement of tectonic plates under the UK and how not all plates move the same way – some are moving together, some are drifting apart, and some are sliding past each other. The children used plate boundary map to annotate.
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- Our teacher created a visual representation of the layers inside the Earth. We used this knowledge to explain why tectonic plates move.
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- We looked at our rivers shape our world and the river processes. The children drew a diagram of a river and labelled it. They learnt that rivers work hard. They hardly stop and so continually erode the channel and move material downstream. This shape and alters the land. The river water pushes stones, boulders and rocks along the course of the river. Rivers can become wider and deeper or even change their shape. As the river moves further away from its source, the material that has been eroded at the start of the river’s journey is carried (transported) downstream and gradually left behind (deposited). This changes the shape of the land; gorge, waterfall, meander, flood plains, ox bow lake, until as the river reaches the mouth, any remaining material is deposited forming a delta.
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- We looked at how waves change the coast. We looked at the impact of how waves can cause gradual changes to landforms – crack, cave, arch, stack, stump.
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- In this lesson, we explored how people’s actions are changing the planet. We learnt that people have been changing the natural landscape around them or as long as they have been moving, settling, hunting and farming. Farming changes the landscape as fields are planted, trees cut down to make space for animals to live or new plants. The growth of technology has increased the ways and speed at which people can change the landscape. People have used technology to take natural resources like coal and stone out of the ground by mining and quarrying. In some places, whole areas have been flooded on purpose to make huge reservoirs of water (Three Gorges Dam in China). Cutting down forests in many parts of the world has changed the landscape and caused problems for wildlife. Pollution is having an effect on the landscape. For example, dirty fumes have caused the rain to contain more acid and this wears away the rocks. The human activity that is changing the landscape is he burning of fossil fuels. This releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and raises the temperature of the planet is rising and weather patterns are changing. As the temperature rises, ice at the Poles is melting. This is changing the shape of the ice at the Poles and sea levels are rising. The warmer seas are also killing the coral reefs.
Year 6
Enquiry Questions:
- Why are forests fantastic?
- What are the key human geographical features of our local area?
- Destination Sao Paulo! What do places have in common?
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- The children used an atlas to record the location of each of the forests – country and continent.
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- We used different types of maps and used GIS to identify location and distribution of main forest vegetation belts of the world: tropical, the temperate and the boreal or taiga. We recalled definition, location and types of biomes. As a class, we used a biome map if necessary to recall the main forest biomes, temperate, tropical and boreal/taiga
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- We identified great forest types of the world to work out where they are located. Pupils used an atlas that shows continents and the lines of longitude and latitude.
We used different types of maps and used GIS to identify location and distribution of main forest vegetation belts of the world: tropical, the temperate and the boreal or taiga. We recalled definition, location and types of biomes. As a class, we used a biome map if necessary to recall the main forest biomes, temperate, tropical and boreal/taiga. We identified great forest types of the world to work out where they are located. Pupils used an atlas that shows continents and the lines of longitude and latitude.
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- We worked out what types forests will grow in the UK (temperate). We learnt that 13% of UK land is covered by woodland or forests. This is a lot less than other countries in Europe. We looked at how forests and woodlands are shown on OS maps and the different symbols used. We used the UK forest information and an atlas to locate the main forests of the UK onto a base map. Pupils used symbols on their map to denote the type of forest and wild life found there.
Fieldwork! We spotted different types of trees, we created tally charts of how many we saw and we did some bark rubbing markings.
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- We learnt that forests offer different types of habitat to animals, insects and fish.
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- In this lesson, we honed in on the Amazon rainforest. We discussed what type of trees grow in the rainforest and why they are special.
