What does Year 7 Geography cover?

Six half-term units, in the order they are taught: Thinking Like a Geographer: The World, and Where Things Are, Ordnance Survey: Reading the Ground, Restless Earth: Geological Time and Plate Tectonics, Rocks, Weathering and Soils: What the Ground Is Made Of, Weather and Climate: Why It Is Like That Here and Fieldwork One: The Ground You Stand On.

What do pupils produce in Year 7 Geography?

A world map drawn from memory, annotated with the continents, oceans and ten countries the student can place without an atlas; A route card for a walk the student has planned from a 1:25 000 sheet, with six-figure references, a distance, and a description of the ground; An annotated world map of plate boundaries that explains, rather than shows, why earthquakes cluster where they do; An explanation of a local soil — its depth, colour and texture — traced back to the rock beneath and the weather above; A climate graph read and explained — not merely described — for a place the student has not studied; A written conclusion that answers the enquiry question using the class's own data, including at least one figure the student measured.

Does Year 7 Geography meet the National Curriculum?

It maps each requirement of the statutory programme of study for key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2013) to the unit that teaches it, and on this year the scheme is plain: “This year deliberately does not cover the region studies or the human processes.”

KS3 Geography · Year 7 · ages 11–12

Year 7 Geography

Six half-term units, in the order we teach them: thinking like a geographer, and where things are; reading an Ordnance Survey map; plate tectonics and geological time; rocks, weathering and soils; weather and climate; and a first fieldwork enquiry in the school grounds. Below is what each unit asks pupils to produce, the places it uses and the skills it teaches, taken from our Year 7 Geography scheme of work.

The Year 7 resources

How the year is ordered

Six units, one academic year. The two map units come first because everything after them assumes both.

Year 7, ages 11–12.

The year, unit by unit

Thinking Like a Geographer: The World, and Where Things Are
Unit 1a · Autumn 1 · 6 lessons · September – October
Where is anything, and how would you know?
Pupils produce
A world map drawn from memory, annotated with the continents, oceans and ten countries the student can place without an atlas.
Places
The seven continents · the Middle East as a region rather than a continent · one satellite image journey from continent to street.
Core skills
Using an atlas index; latitude and longitude to locate a place; reading a globe against a flat map and noticing that they disagree.
Ordnance Survey: Reading the Ground
Unit 1b · Autumn 2 · 6 lessons · November – December
Can you find a place you have never been, and know what it looks like before you get there?
Pupils produce
A route card for a walk the student has planned from a 1:25 000 sheet, with six-figure references, a distance, and a description of the ground.
Places
The department's own local 1:25 000 sheet · one upland sheet for contrast · the school from above.
Core skills
Four- and six-figure grid references; measuring distance with scale; reading relief from contours; matching an aerial photograph to a map.
Restless Earth: Geological Time and Plate Tectonics
Unit 2a · Spring 1 · 6 lessons · January – February
Why does the ground move in some places and never in others?
Pupils produce
An annotated world map of plate boundaries that explains, rather than shows, why earthquakes cluster where they do.
Places
The Pacific Ring of Fire · Iceland at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge · one recent earthquake, chosen for having good data rather than a high toll.
Core skills
Reading a distribution map for pattern; describing a pattern before explaining it — the order that separates a good answer from a list.
Rocks, Weathering and Soils: What the Ground Is Made Of
Unit 2b · Spring 2 · 6 lessons · February – March
Why is the soil in one field deep and dark, and thin and pale in the next?
Pupils produce
An explanation of a local soil — its depth, colour and texture — traced back to the rock beneath and the weather above.
Places
One limestone landscape · one granite upland · the school's own ground, dug or augered.
Core skills
Classifying by observable property; distinguishing two processes that are routinely confused; reading a simple soil profile.
Weather and Climate: Why It Is Like That Here
Unit 3a · Summer 1 · 6 lessons · April – May
Weather is what you got this morning. What is climate?
Pupils produce
A climate graph read and explained — not merely described — for a place the student has not studied.
Places
The UK · one hot desert at about 25 degrees · one equatorial station · the school's own weather record.
Core skills
Reading a climate graph; calculating a temperature range; describing a trend before explaining it.
Fieldwork One: The Ground You Stand On
Unit 3b · Summer 2 · 6 lessons · June – July
Can you answer a question about a real place using data you collected yourself?
Pupils produce
A written conclusion that answers the enquiry question using the class's own data, including at least one figure the student measured.
Places
The school site and the streets immediately around it. Local, familiar, and deliberately so.
Core skills
Land use mapping; a simple systematic count; recording accurately outdoors; presenting data on a base map; concluding from evidence rather than from expectation.

How it meets the key stage 3 programme of study

The scheme maps each requirement of the statutory programme of study for key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2013) to the unit that teaches it. Pupils should be taught to…

Locational knowledge: extend their locational knowledge and deepen their spatial awareness of the world's countries, using maps of the world to focus on Africa, Russia, Asia (including China and India), and the Middle East, focusing on their environmental regions, including polar and hot deserts, key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities: 1a — the continents, oceans and the four statutory focus regions, located and drawn from memory.
Place knowledge: understand geographical similarities, differences and links between places through the study of the human and physical geography of a region in Africa and a region in Asia: Not this year — see the key stage map at the back.
Human and physical geography: understand, through the use of detailed place-based exemplars at a variety of scales, the key processes in: physical geography relating to: geological timescales and plate tectonics; rocks, weathering and soils; weather and climate, including the change in climate from the Ice Age to the present; and glaciation, hydrology and coasts: 2a tectonics and geological timescales · 2b rocks, weathering and soils · 3a weather and climate.
Human and physical geography: understand, through the use of detailed place-based exemplars at a variety of scales, the key processes in: human geography relating to: population and urbanisation; international development; economic activity in the primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary sectors; and the use of natural resources: Not this year — see the key stage map at the back.
Human and physical geography: understand how human and physical processes interact to influence and change landscapes, environments and the climate; and how human activity relies on the effective functioning of natural systems: Not this year — see the key stage map at the back.
Geographical skills and fieldwork: build on their knowledge of globes, maps and atlases, and apply and develop this knowledge routinely in the classroom and in the field: 1a establishes atlas and globe work; used in every unit afterwards.
Geographical skills and fieldwork: interpret Ordnance Survey maps in the classroom and the field, including using grid references and scale, topographical and other thematic mapping, and aerial and satellite photographs: 1b — the full Ordnance Survey ladder: grid references, scale, contours, thematic symbols and aerial photographs.
Geographical skills and fieldwork: use Geographical Information Systems (GIS) to view, analyse and interpret places and data: 1a, a first look on Google Earth. Developed in Years 8 and 9.
Geographical skills and fieldwork: use fieldwork in contrasting locations to collect, analyse and draw conclusions from geographical data: 3b — the school grounds and local streets, the familiar end of the key stage's three contrasting locations.

This year deliberately does not cover the region studies or the human processes. Both are Year 8, and the sequence is the reason: a comparison of a region in Africa with a region in Asia needs the physical vocabulary this year builds, and urbanisation is not worth teaching to a class that cannot yet read a settlement off a map. Glaciation and the change in climate since the Ice Age are named in the statutory physical list and are held to Year 9, where they carry the climate-change work. The key stage map at the back shows every statement against the year that teaches it.

The Year 7 Geography resources

Two PDFs sit behind this page, and they are meant to be used together: the scheme of work to plan the year, the knowledge organisers to put in front of pupils.

Geography · Key Stage 3£4.99

Year 7 Geography Scheme of Work

Full description on the Year 7 Geography scheme of work page.

The statutory programme of study for key stage 3 geography (DfE, 2013)·65 pages, 19 sections·For heads of geography, subject leaders and every teacher who has to deliver it

Preview · first 8 pages

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KS3 Geography · Year 7 · six A4 sheets£3.99

Year 7 Geography Knowledge Organisers

Full description on the Year 7 Geography knowledge organisers page.

Written to Empower Educators Year 7 Geography scheme of work·6 pages, 6 sections·For geography teachers and heads of department. Printed one per pupil

See every page · part-blurred

🔓 Buy to remove the watermark · print-ready

One purchase covers the school that buys it · PDF straight after payment · Refunds

Where to go from here

Year 8 Geography: the next year
Year 9 Geography: the end of key stage 3
KS3 Geography knowledge organisers: all three years
Geography schemes of work: Key Stage 3 and GCSE
Geography key terms: the vocabulary

Questions

What does Year 7 Geography cover?
Six half-term units, in the order they are taught: Thinking Like a Geographer: The World, and Where Things Are, Ordnance Survey: Reading the Ground, Restless Earth: Geological Time and Plate Tectonics, Rocks, Weathering and Soils: What the Ground Is Made Of, Weather and Climate: Why It Is Like That Here and Fieldwork One: The Ground You Stand On.
What do pupils produce in Year 7 Geography?
A world map drawn from memory, annotated with the continents, oceans and ten countries the student can place without an atlas; A route card for a walk the student has planned from a 1:25 000 sheet, with six-figure references, a distance, and a description of the ground; An annotated world map of plate boundaries that explains, rather than shows, why earthquakes cluster where they do; An explanation of a local soil — its depth, colour and texture — traced back to the rock beneath and the weather above; A climate graph read and explained — not merely described — for a place the student has not studied; A written conclusion that answers the enquiry question using the class's own data, including at least one figure the student measured.
Does Year 7 Geography meet the National Curriculum?
It maps each requirement of the statutory programme of study for key stage 3 (Department for Education, 2013) to the unit that teaches it, and on this year the scheme is plain: “This year deliberately does not cover the region studies or the human processes.”