At Fairisle Junior School, in Geography, your child will build on their understanding of the world by exploring diverse places, both local and global, and learning about the human and physical processes that shape them. Our curriculum follows the National Curriculum objectives, ensuring a comprehensive and engaging geographical education.

Locational Knowledge

Your child will learn to:

• Locate the world’s continents and oceans, understanding their relative positions.
• Identify the main countries and capital cities of the United Kingdom and Europe, and be able to locate them on a map.
• Identify the position and significance of key geographical lines of latitude (like the Equator, Tropics of Cancer/Capricorn) and longitude (like the Prime/Greenwich Meridian).

Place Knowledge

Your child will learn to:

• Study a region of the United Kingdom (a focus on its human and physical geography).
• Study a region of a European country and a region in North or South America, comparing and contrasting them with the UK or other areas previously studied.
• Understand the similarities and differences between places through careful observation and enquiry.

Human and Physical Geography

Your child will learn about:

Physical Geography

• Key physical features, including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, and the water cycle.
• The processes that form these features (e.g., how mountains are created, or how rivers shape the landscape).

Human Geography

• Key human features, including types of settlement and land use, economic activity (such as trade links), and the distribution of natural resources (such as energy, food, and water).
• How human activity interacts with and impacts the physical environment.

Geographical Skills and Fieldwork

Your child will develop practical skills by:

• Using maps, atlases, globes, and digital/computer mapping to locate places and describe features.
• Using the eight points of a compass, four and six-figure grid references, symbols, and keys to develop their knowledge of the UK and the wider world.
• Using fieldwork to observe, measure, record, and present the human and physical features in the local area, using a range of methods including sketch maps, plans, and graphs.

In addition to in-class learning, there are many opportunities across their time at Fairisle where children will be able to get hands-on experience of fieldwork. In Year 3, children go on a tour of Southampton and the surrounding area, including into The New Forest, giving them the opportunity to see the differences between cities and villages for themselves. In Year 4, children explore Beaulieu River to help them understand the key geographical features of rivers as well as completing valuable fieldwork. 

Take a look at some of our Geography work: