Year 3

Autumn -  UK as a part of Europe

This topic allows the pupils to build on their knowledge of UK and its relation to other countries. With recent political events and the Brexit situation, the children’s understanding of the UK as part of the Europe is more important than ever before.

Through the use of atlases, globes and digital maps, the children will identify and learn the difference between Great Britain, United Kingdom and the British Isles. Without a doubt, in year 3, majority of the children will have experienced holidays abroad and the scale and distances linked to their travels. Their raw experience of the world will allow them to discuss understand the relationships with other countries and will prepare them for learning about the world countries in year 4 and trade links in year 6.

Lastly, the children will be comparing the changes the UK has experienced over the last two centuries. By looking at the British Empire and remaining overseas territories, the children will get an insight into the scale of the British Empire at its golden age and, furthermore, this will help them understand the multicultural nature of the UK. 

Autumn - UK Knowledge - Scotland

This topic allows the pupils to continue their learning of UK from KS1 and its countries. The pupils will be able to research Scotland using a range of both digital and paper maps and atlases and its location and significance in relation to the rest of the UK. Using their prior knowledge and well-known stereotypes, the teacher guides the children through the exploration of the most northern part of the UK and its many islands; letting the children discover and decide for themselves what makes Scotland special. During this unit of work, the children have a fantastic opportunity to use digital maps such as Digimaps for schools and Google Earth to ‘visit’ places, observe the differences between different locations and report back on their findings. Doing so, they will begin to recognise the differences when using maps of different scales.

The study of physical features will serve as an introduction to the topic Volcanoes, Mountains and Earthquakes studied later on in the year. Research of significant cities and what makes them important will lay base for the students’ learning about trade, natural resources and global links in Year 6, where it will be revisited and build upon.

Spring: Volcanoes, Mountains and Earthquakes

This unit of work continues to develop the pupils’ understanding of landscape and physical features of our planet and allows them to further investigate how some of these features are formed, processes related to these changes and most importantly, where in the world these occur.

Building on their previous study of Rocks in Science in Spring, the children will be using atlases and online maps to identify some of the world’s most prominent mountains, volcanos and areas well-known for volcanic activity and earthquakes. By revisiting their study of Scotland from Autumn, the children will learn to differentiate between a dormant and an active volcano and they will also research the positive and negative impact a volcanic eruption can have on human lives.

This unit is concluded by briefly explaining earthquakes and tsunamis with focus on the effect on people in the world.

The pupils will continue to develop their awareness of the world and its countries in Year 4 and they will further their understanding of the geology of the Earth in Year 5 Science in Autumn.

Summer: Local Area Land Use

This last unit of Geography work for Year 3 links is mainly practical with many opportunities for fieldwork and map skills and aims to build upon the Year 1 Local area study unit of work by teaching and utilising KS2 Map skills. The unit comes after History topic in Summer 1 (History of Cronton), in which the children will have understood the significance and history of Cronton as a settlement and learned about some of the key topographical features of Cronton.

In this unit, the pupils will be merging their history knowledge with the locational knowledge and developing those through observation of land is use in local area. The pupils will begin to discuss the reasons and suitability of a location for land uses and they will learn to differentiate between rural and urban areas, all through the use of OS maps, making of their own sketch maps and gathering evidence in the field. Revisiting their UK Knowledge: Scotland unit from Autumn, the children will compare the land use in Cronton and Edinburgh. In their assessment lesson, they will have a brilliant opportunity to compare historical and present day maps and observe the urban growth.

This unit of work lays foundations for Year 6 topic Settlements and Migration, in which the pupils will be able to extend their understanding of land use beyond the local area