Our humanities curriculum provides our children with a rich knowledge base in history and geography by immersing them in a topic, and at the same time develops their historical and geographical enquiry skills. Learning is supported by visits to museums, historical sites and geography field trips to name just a few of the additional curriculum opportunities that our children experience.
Our history curriculum has been designed to enable children to follow a chronology of British and World history as they progress through the school. Starting with pre-history and early man in Year 1, through ancient civilisations, the beginning of the monarchy, revolutionary periods and continuing up to modern day history, studying the World Wars in Year 6. This allows the children to use the in-depth knowledge they have gained to make links to previous historical periods that they have studied, rather than seeing each period in isolation. In addition, the enquiry focus encourages them to ask questions and seek comparisons across time periods as well as within them.
These enquiry skills are also emphasised in our geography curriculum, with fieldwork playing an important role. We are able to utilise our amazing outdoor learning environment to develop these skills, which they then apply in wider contexts by studying increasingly wider communities and larger geographical areas as they progress through the school. Alongside this, children learn about the important issues of sustainability, conservation and our responsibility in protecting our environment. Children are encouraged to engage with our natural world and the environmental issues that inspire them, which many of them do through our citizenship pathway programme.
Linking history and geography through our topic-based learning, and revisiting countries through our spiral curriculum, brings both the geographical landscapes, and the history of Britain and other countries to life. Our aim is that through studying both modern culture and past cultures of an area, alongside the physical landscapes and features of different places, children develop a greater understanding of the world, make links with the past, and see how we can learn from it.
For more information on our History and Geography curriculum please click the 'Humanities Curriculum' tab on the drop-down menu and then click on the relevant year groups to find half-termly overview documents.
