Humanities and Languages
History Curriculum
Our History curriculum identifies closely with the National curriculum in valuing the importance of pupils gaining a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world.
Effective History teaching should inspire curiosity and enable pupils to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments and develop perspective and judgement. History helps pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups as well as their own identity.
National Curriculum Aims
The national curriculum for history aims to ensure that all pupils:
- know and understand the history of these islands as a coherent, chronological narrative, from the earliest times to the present day: how people’s lives have shaped this nation and how Britain has influenced and been influenced by the wider world
- know and understand significant aspects of the history of the wider world: the nature of ancient civilisations; the expansion and dissolution of empires; characteristic features of past non-European societies; achievements and follies of mankind
- gain and deploy a historically grounded understanding of abstract terms such as ‘empire’, ‘civilisation’, ‘parliament’ and ‘peasantry’
- understand historical concepts such as continuity and change, cause and consequence, similarity, difference and significance, and use them to make connections, draw contrasts, analyse trends, frame historically-valid questions and create their own structured accounts, including written narratives and analyses
- understand the methods of historical enquiry, including how evidence is used rigorously to make historical claims, and discern how and why contrasting arguments and interpretations of the past have been constructed
- gain historical perspective by placing their growing knowledge into different contexts, understanding the connections between local, regional, national and international history; between cultural, economic, military, political, religious and social history; and between short- and long-term timescales.
Geography Curriculum
Pupils will develop an understanding of themselves as global citizens and the importance of understanding other cultures and the importance of caring for the planet.
The approach is based on teaching pupils three forms of geographical knowledge that interlink and are mutually dependent.
National Curriculum Aims
The national curriculum for geography aims to ensure that all pupils:
- develop contextual knowledge of the location of globally significant places – both terrestrial and marine – including their defining physical and human characteristics and how these provide a geographical context for understanding the actions of processes
- understand the processes that give rise to key physical and human geographical features of the world, how these are interdependent and how they bring about spatial variation and change over time
- are competent in the geographical skills needed to:
§ collect, analyse and communicate with a range of data gathered through experiences of fieldwork that deepen their understanding of geographical processes
§ interpret a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems (GIS)
§ communicate geographical information in a variety of ways, including through maps, numerical and quantitative skills and writing at length
Languages Curriculum
During Key Stage 1, we celebrate this by asking pupils and parents to introduce their languages, so all children are aware of other languages
During Key Stage 2, All classes study French, using the Language Angels scheme – view the French Progression Document for details.
National Curriculum Aims
The national curriculum for languages aims to ensure that all pupils:
- understand and respond to spoken and written language from a variety of authentic sources
- speak with increasing confidence, fluency and spontaneity, finding ways of communicating what they want to say, including through discussion and asking questions, and continually improving the accuracy of their pronunciation and intonation
- can write at varying length, for different purposes and audiences, using the variety of grammatical structures that they have learned
- discover and develop an appreciation of a range of writing in the language studied