During this half term, year 6 will be answering the overarching question of, ‘Why are rich countries often the poorest?’ Through their geography enquiry, they will be learning all about trade. They will gain an understanding of the term ‘globalisation’ and they will learn about the World Trade Organisation including who it is run by, who is part of the organisation and what their main aims are.

 

The children will then go on to learn about what countries export. They will be able to locate the main countries and cities of the world and draw trade links between them, showing what they export and why?

 

At this point, the children will understand that the natural resources of the world are unevenly distributed but actually, exports don’t just have to be goods – they can be services too.  After this, the children will consider why countries then import goods. They will learn the reasons including needs and wants, cost, supply and demand. They will research the cost of buying these goods is not comparable to the cost of making/extracting them.

 

Focus will then turn to the production of cotton. The children will find out where cotton comes from and find these places on the map, thinking about what the physical characteristics of these places are to enable cotton to grow. This will lead on to the children understanding about child labour and its impact by studying the case of child labour in India. Finally, the children will showcase their learning in a final persuasive campaign, urging people not to support shops who buy their goods from countries where child labour is prevalent.