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Important update from TheSchoolRun

For the past 13 years, TheSchoolRun has been run by a small team of mums working from home, dedicated to providing quality educational resources to primary school parents. Unfortunately, rising supplier costs and falling revenue have made it impossible for us to continue operating, and we’ve had to make the difficult decision to close. The good news: We’ve arranged for another educational provider to take over many of our resources. These will be hosted on a new portal, where the content will be updated and expanded to support your child’s learning.

What this means for subscribers:

  • Your subscription is still active, and for now, you can keep using the website as normal — just log in with your usual details to access all our articles and resources*.
  • In a few months, all resources will move to the new portal. You’ll continue to have access there until your subscription ends. We’ll send you full details nearer the time.
  • As a thank you for your support, we’ll also be sending you 16 primary school eBooks (worth £108.84) to download and keep.

A few changes to be aware of:

  • The Learning Journey weekly email has ended, but your child’s plan will still be updated on your dashboard each Monday. Just log in to see the recommended worksheets.
  • The 11+ weekly emails have now ended. We sent you all the remaining emails in the series at the end of March — please check your inbox (and spam folder) if you haven’t seen them. You can also follow the full programme here: 11+ Learning Journey.

If you have any questions, please contact us at enquiries@theschoolrun.com. Thank you for being part of our journey it’s been a privilege to support your family’s learning.

*If you need to reset your password, it will still work as usual. Please check your spam folder if the reset email doesn’t appear in your inbox.

Key Stage 2 Geography – the curriculum

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What will your child be learning in Key Stage 2 geography, and how can you support their work? We take a look.

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.

KS2 geography 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 with geography 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?