This project focuses on British prehistory from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, including changes to people and lifestyle caused by ingenuity, invention and technological advancement. Although this is not a main Geography project, the children will learn about the Stone Age monuments in the United Kingdom, describing the type, purpose and use of the monuments, and identifying reasons for their location. The children will describe and understand key aspects of human geography, including, types of settlement and land use, economic activity including trade links, and the distribution of natural resources including energy, food, minerals and water. This project is studied in the Autumn Term. 

This is the main Geography project studied in Year 3. This project will enable the children to describe and have a detailed understanding of key aspects of physical Geography. It teaches children about the features and characteristics of Earth's layers, including a detailed exploration of volcanic, tectonic and seismic activity. The children will name and describe properties of the Earth’s four layers, and they will name and describe the types, appearance and properties of rocks. They will have opportunities to explore, sort and classify different types of rock and investigate their properties, to enable them to identify sedimentary, igneous or metamorphic rocks.

The children will use world maps to identify the location of plate boundaries. They will learn how the tectonic plates move and the potential impact on the Earth’s surface. The children will describe the activity of plate tectonics and how this has changed the Earth’s surface over time (continental drift). They will study significant volcanoes include Mount Vesuvius in Italy, Laki in Iceland and Krakatoa in Indonesia. In addition, they will look at significant earthquake-prone areas, including the San Andreas Fault in North America and the Ring of Fire, which runs around the edge of the Pacific Ocean and is where many plate boundaries in the Earth's crust converge. They will use maps to locate these.

The children will look at volcanoes and earthquakes in detail as they describe the different parts. They will understand that these are known as natural disasters, as they are created by nature, affect many people and cause widespread damage.

They will learn the type of volcanoes, their status and the different types of volcanic eruptions. Also, they will use research materials to find out how a landscape changes after a volcanic eruption, in particular, focusing on the consequences of volcanic activity on people and the landscape.

They will study the causes and consequences of an earthquake, looking at how the movement of two plates on a boundary contributes to earthquakes. The children will describe how earthquakes have changed landscapes in the short term and long term.  They will move onto Tsunamis and learn how volcanic activity and earthquakes can cause a Tsunami.

In this project, the children will be introduced to latitude and longitude and they will be able to locate significant places using latitude and longitude on a range of world maps and atlases. They will also recap cardinal compass points and learn about the intercardinal points of a compass, so they will be able to identify and use the eight points of a compass; north, south, east, west, north-east, north-west, south-east and south-west.

This projects draws on the children’s knowledge of using world maps and atlases to locate countries and describe features, whilst learning about the Roman Empire. They will use maps, globes and digital mapping tools to locate and describe significant geographical features. This is studied in the Summer Term.