School Packs - Geography of River Settlements

Riverside Settlements – KS3 (Year 8) Geography
with adapted material for KS4 (Year 11) study of Settlements.

Lessons 1 & 2 Pre-farming communities
Lessons 3 & 4 Farming communities

Introduction and Aims:

Geography of River Settlements Introduction and Aims  (14.87 KB)

Rivers and Settlements are investigated at Key Stages 2, 3 & 4 in the Geography Curriculum and there are a number of very useful textbooks to guide the teacher through the subject area. For example at Key Stage 3, high schools in Worcestershire use Earthworks Volume 2(Widdowson 1999. Published by Hodder and Stoughton).

The primary aim of this resource is to provide teachers with complementary material which gives pupils the opportunity to improve their ‘skills, knowledge and understanding’ of Geography by exploring their local environment; or more specifically, the study of physical evidence for how rivers (and their valleys) have influenced our choice of settlement location in the past and present.

Factors influencing the choice of site are explored briefly in Key Stage 2 History and, in Key Stage 3 Geography, pupils should have prior knowledge of rock formations and the ways in which rivers form and change the landscape.

  (1.52 MB)

The four lessons described here are designed to follow on immediately from the study of the natural formation of river valleys and, the key theme within them, is how Human Geography affects Physical Geography.

Lessons 1 and 2 explore how we used rivers, and their valleys, to survive as hunters and gatherers, and lessons 3 and 4 investigate how we cultivated the land and built permanent farming settlements. Two particular areas in Worcestershire are used (the Carrant/Avon Valley, in the foothills of Bredon and the Severn Valley at Clifton, north of Upton) to allow pupils to grasp the general and specific teaching points. The internet resource has specific links to images of other areas in all parts of the county, so that pupils have local examples to illustrate their knowledge and understanding of the factors which have influence our choice of settlement location.

A logical progression for the next sequence of lessons would be for pupils to study the growth of villages and towns. This would provide an important link to key stage 3 History study of Life in Town and Country in Medieval Britain (which is usually studied in Year 7).

Begin Lesson 1 >>  

Learning Aids

The dropdown menu below contains PDF versions of all four lessons along with teaching aid documents:

Please select: Introduction and Aims Preamble for teachers Lesson 1 Lesson 2 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 General teaching points for Rivers and Settlements Specific teaching points for Rivers and Settlements Geographical knowledge and skills Timeline

This resource is funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund