Carlton Junior and Infant School

Humanities

Vision Statement

Intent

At Carlton Junior and Infant School, we follow the expectations of the National Curriculum and EYFS whilst ensuring a high quality of history and geography education. We aim to ensure that our pupils have a deep understanding of the skills and knowledge to access learning. The humanities are taught in a thematic and immersive way with an emphasis on active learning to keep pupils engaged. Throughout their time at Carlton, pupils follow a clear and transferable progression linked to skills and knowledge. These will continue into their further education and beyond. Our approach deliberately ensures the pupil, the school, the family, the local community, the local area and the wider world will be studied. Linked with other subjects, the humanities provide a range of experiences and achievements, which contribute to the richness of pupils' lives according to individual needs and abilities.

Geography is exciting, enjoyable, and a relevant subject to all. It helps to provoke and provide answers to questions about the natural and human aspect of the world. Pupils are encouraged to develop greater skills, understanding and knowledge which are transferable to other areas of the curriculum. Geography, by nature, is an investigative subject so we seek to inspire children’s curiosity and fascination about the world and its people. Hopefully this inquisitiveness will remain with them for the rest of their lives. We will:

promote children’s interest to explore, experience and develop an understanding of diverse places, people, resources and the natural and human environment.

Help pupils to have a sense of their surroundings and the wider world.

Study different cultures and encourage an understanding of difference/diversity whist comparing and contrasting human and physical aspects.

explore the Earth’s key physical features and processes such as different biomes, volcanoes and extreme weather.

Through the teaching of history, we can expand our pupils' knowledge and understanding of the past and encourage their investigation of it. Pupils study the relevant past, experiencing, investigating and being immersed in a range of sources of information. Learning about the past- how it has influenced and shaped our lives, beliefs, and customs, can help pupils to make sense of the world in which they live. In History, we will:

provide opportunities to stimulate pupils’ experience and foster an understanding of events, chronology and places

develop a sense of identity and cultural understanding based on our historical heritage.

Enabling our children to learn to value their own and other people’s cultures in modern multicultural Britain.

Enrich the curriculum by offering pupils the opportunity to be actively involved in exploring the world around them. This is achieved through a range of activities including but not limited to: handling artefacts, visiting museums, listening to speakers and stories, looking at books, photos and through taking part in practical craft-based activities linked to particular topics.

Implementation

At Carlton, the humanities (Topic lesson) are taught on a weekly basis in every class. Topics are blocked to allow children to focus on developing their knowledge and skills, studying each topic in depth. History in EYFS & KS1 begins by looking at the children own personal history and introduces them to the idea of chronology and timelines. They look at significant events and people who have shaped society locally, nationally and globally. In KS2, each year group studies aspects of local history, a British history topic and an ancient history topic. Chronology is taught to allow children to consistently build on previous knowledge and learning by placing previously taught History topics on a timeline. Geography provides a purposeful platform for exploring, appreciating and understanding the world in which we live and how it has evolved. We ensure pupils are able to explore the relationship between the Earth and its people through the study of place, space and environment and learn the skills of understanding locational knowledge.

At the start of each topic, children will review previous learning and will have the opportunity to share what they already know about a current topic. This ensures lessons are relevant and take into account different starting points.

During the topic, pupils will:

Be given opportunities to use enquiry, investigation, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and presentation.

Be given consideration on how greater depth will be taught, learnt and shown in lessons

Observe effective modelling by teachers to ensure that children are able to achieve their learning intentions, with misconceptions addressed within it.

Be supported to develop their ability to know more and remember more. There will be opportunities to review the learning that has taken place in previous topics and lessons.

Be given the opportunity for Self or Peer Assessment, which will then be used to inform planning, preparation, differentiation and address any misconceptions within that lesson, or for the next lesson.

Planning and Support

Medium term and sequence planning for all units will cover key concepts/skills

Include educational visits and visitors, to enrich and enhance the pupil’s learning experience where possible

Cross-curricular links are planned for, with other subjects such as Maths, Literacy, Computing, Art & DT.

Educational, immersive displays that help to create a rich learning environment for each Humanities focus.

Impact

The impact of our interwoven curriculum design will lead to outstanding progress over time across all stages of learning from pupils starting point to completion. Children will therefore be expected to leave Carlton reaching at least age-related expectations. Each member of staff is confident to express and use judgements to identify children’s starting points, progress and planned experiences. They ensure ongoing observations to cement pupil advancements. We believe our high standards are due to the balance of direct teaching, enriched experiences and analysis of skills, observations and knowledge. Through this rich diet of balanced learning experiences, we develop happy, curious and enthusiastic geographers and historians, who will share their opinions through pupil voice and their work. Monitoring of teaching and learning will be through book scrutinies, professional discussions, observation, learning walks etc and will show skills development and progress.

“I love our topic lessons because we can travel to the past and learn about the history and geography of a place and how this has had an impact on our present.” (Year 6)

“Topic lesson is my favourite time of the week because I learn so much information and I want to be an archaeologist when I grow up.” (Year 5)

Humanities In Action

Mayan Civilisation

Year 6’s brilliant graduate approach homework based on the Mayan Civilisation.

World War Workshop

In Year 4, we took part in an amazing workshop where we handled items that were used during the war and learnt lots of new facts.

History At Oxford!

During our visit to Oxford, we visited the History of Science Museum where we learnt all about Ibn al-Haytham who is known for his work on visuals and how we see things.

Athens Vs. Sparta

Year 5 have shown the value of collaboration whilst designing posters to draw contrasts between life in ancient Athens and ancient Sparta. We also took part in a debate to argue which city we would prefer to live in whilst justifying our reasons.

Greek Artefacts

Year 5 have been examining different Ancient Greek artefacts and asking questions that they will use as part of their research. Children enjoyed being able to see the objects that they have been learning about.

Black History Month