What children learn about mountains at KS1 and KS2
What the national curriculum expects
Mountains are named in the KS2 geography curriculum in two places. Under locational knowledge, pupils should name and locate counties and cities of the UK, geographical regions and their key topographical features including hills, mountains, coasts and rivers, and understand how some of these have changed over time. Under physical geography, pupils should describe and understand key aspects including climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts, rivers, mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes, and the water cycle.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across where mountains are and how they form:
UK mountains
The main ranges and peaks of the United Kingdom
World mountains
The world's major ranges, and where to find them
How mountains form
The processes that push land upwards
Altitudinal zones
How conditions change as you climb
Mountain water
Why rivers begin in mountains, and how meltwater and rainfall shape the slopes
Erosion and deposition
How water and weather reshape the land over time
Contour lines
Reading height and shape on a map
Fieldwork and data
Using aerial images, maps and data to study landscapes
Where this topic sits within KS1 and KS2
Mountains sits within the KS2 geography curriculum under both locational knowledge and physical geography. The National Curriculum doesn’t set a year group, so schools place it to suit their long-term plan. KS1 pupils meet mountains earlier through the basic geographical vocabulary for key physical features.
How to access this topic
Mountains don’t sit on their own in the curriculum. The Cornerstones geography curriculum is fully sequenced from EYFS through Year 1 to Year 6, so you can see what comes before, what follows and how the whole picture fits together. We’ve done the thinking, so your planning time goes into teaching, not sequencing.
Full curriculum
Subject curriculum
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