Like many primary teachers, I find foundation subjects like geography can be squeezed out of the timetable, as it is mostly themes, not topics, which are hard to wrap up in an hour a week. One solution is to use the non-fiction element of the literacy hour. “Texts” can be videos, photographs, maps, as well as the written word, and children can write accounts, adverts, newspaper articles, letters of persuasion and instructions based on geographical material.

A great way to teach primary geography is through a themed day. You can involve the whole school and take in science, literacy, numeracy and global citizenship.

At Oakthorpe Primary School we tied our day to Fair Trade Fortnight (March 4-17). It made a big impact, not least because we ran a mobile Fair Trade chocolate stall which visited each class!

We asked the Day Chocolate Company for copies of its brilliant Pa Pa Paa pack produced with Comic Relief on how chocolate is traded, from farms in Ghana to supermarkets here, with statistics on consumption and profits. Even the infants could get involved using the beautiful images.

Years 1 and 2 also worked on the chocolate journey, finding out how cocoa is grown, how much each child and family spent in a week on chocolate and how much reaches the farmer. Pupils wrote postcards from Ghana telling of life on a cocoa plantation.

Years 3 and 4 compared family income in Ghana with that in the UK, the cost of ethical shopping and how, if one bar costs 50p and the farmer only gets 7p, buying a fair trade bar where the farmer gets 9p can add up to a huge amount over weeks, months and years. Pupils worked out who makes most of the bars on sale, what is added to the pure chocolate and what profits are made by which companies. They carried out taste comparisons and wrote jingles for the bars.

Years 5 and 6 did workshops with our visiting speakers from Cred (part of Unicef’s UK Education Network). Year 5 worked on the world trade in bananas and gave a presentation to the infants, while Year 6 looked at world trade in designer clothing and presented to Years 3 and 4. Year 5 followed the banana trail, while Year 6 took the clothing trail comparing the lives of child labourers with their own.

We followed the day’s activities with a week in which geography took over the literacy hour. We got children writing to governments and companies, describing how chocolate is made, writing advertisements for chocolate bars and branded clothing. For once, we didn’t have to fight for geography lessons - everyone was eager to join in.

Pa Pa Paa teachers’ packsare available by post from Education Direct, PO Box 105, Rochester ME2 4BE, or at www.dubble.co.uk

Fair Trade Foundation. Tel: 020 7405 5942 www.fairtrade.org.uk

Cred. Tel: 020 8885 3625 www.cred.org.uk

Sue Davies is humanities co-ordinator at Oakthorpe Primary School, Enfield, north London. Oakthorpe is a Beacon School