Becoming KSJ historians and geographers

 

 

"Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become

children of light.”

 

'From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands.' Acts 17:26

At Kingsley St John's we believe that the humanities provide answers to the questions children have about the world around them. Through enjoyment of these subjects pupils will be stimulated to think about their own place in the world, their values, British values and their rights and responsibilities to other people and the environment.History and geography are subjecst driven by curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.  Developing knowledge, skills and understanding of not only what places and people are like now or in the past, but also discovering what might be in the future, and how we, as children of light, have the ability and opportunity to shape the future.

 

What is History?

History can take the form of a tremendous story, a rolling narrative filled with great personalities and tales of turmoil and triumph. Each generation adds its own chapters to history while reinterpreting and finding new things in those chapters already written.

History provides us with a sense of identity. By understanding where we have come from, we can better understand who we are. History provides a sense of context for our lives and our existence. It helps us understand the way things are and how we might approach the future.

History teaches us what it means to be human, highlighting the great achievements and disastrous errors of the human race. History also teaches us through example, offering hints about how we can better organise and manage our societies for the benefit of all.

     

 

 

 

Intent: What do we intend our pupils to learn?

At Kingsley St John’s we have a curriculum that is successfully adapted, designed and developed to include all our pupils. It is coherently planned and sequenced to embed knowledge and skills about local, British and world history. Our curriculum is sequenced in chronological order to enable our pupils to study history as a whole school narrative. This allows our pupils to transfer new knowledge and build on what has previously been taught.

Our history curriculum is knowledge, vocabulary and skills rich allowing for discovery learning. We inspire our pupils curiosity to find out more about the past and ask perceptive questions, reporting their findings by drawing on skills from across the curriculum. Our pupils will study a range of cultures and historical perspectives allowing them to understand the complexities of people’s lives, the diversity of society and relationships between different groups and enabling them to be respectful and tolerant of our similarities and differences.

Our pupils will leave Kingsley St John’s being able to explain how history fits together, how key events and people from one time period affect another and make detailed links across features of past societies and different historical periods.

Implementation: How is history taught and assessed in order to build pupils knowledge and enable them to apply that knowledge as skills?

At Kingsley St John’s knowledge is seen as a springboard to acquiring more knowledge. Our history curriculum is designed to allow our pupils to develop their historical skills and vocabulary.  Each key stage has a set of historical skills to ensure that our pupils as developing their skills as historians:

• understanding chronology and historical concepts,
• interpretation ,
• enquiry 
• and communication

Our units of work are designed to enable us to teach concepts to an appropriate order to support our pupils understanding and build on previously taught knowledge and skills.

Golden threads

Our history curriculum is a 2-year rolling programme, reviewed yearly. We have adopted a ‘golden thread’ approach, a series of historical concepts which the pupils revisit over time accumulating and integrating knowledge into larger areas.

         

                                                   

Religion	Economy	Conflict	Leadership	Society
Worship Afterlife Belief Priests Pilgramage	Trade/Trade route Resources Rich/Poor/Peasantry Slavery/Slaves	Power Invasion/Invader Conquer/Conquest Military	Monarchy King/queen/Emperor/leader Power/control Democracy Laws and legislation Crime and Punishment	Settlement Migration Empire/kingdom Culture Civilisation

 

        Reading across the curriculum

We use high quality texts to support our history topics and enrich our wider curriculum. Each teacher provides a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts in their class reading area to support pupil’s curiosity and learning.

    

Curriculum Enrichment

Where possible each unit of work is enriched by a school trip or school visitor. For example, Class 2 visit Grosvenor museum to learn about changes within living memory and Weaver hall museum to experience the Great Fire of London whilst Class 3 take part in a life in the stone age day at school. Visitors from the local community have supported our whole school learning around Remembrance as we researched our village war memorial.

 

Impact: How do we know our history curriculum is effective?

At Kingsley St John’s we believe that if our pupils have become knowledgeable and effective historians they will be able to talk with knowledge and confidence on the range of topics studied ,making connections and links between different time periods and how these links affect us. This is why pupil voice is such an important tool in measuring progress and impact.The work in our topic and curriculum books will be of a consistently high quality and will incorporate learning from other areas of the curriculum and our discovery curriculum.

 

What is Geography?

Geography is the study of the shape and features of the Earth's surface, including countries, vegetation, climates and how humans use the world's resources.

Human geography concerns the understanding of the dynamics of culture,societies and economies, and physical geography concerns the understanding of the dynamics of landscapes and the environment.

Geography puts this understanding of social and physical processes within the context of place-recognisong the great differences in cultures,political systems,economies,landscapes and environments across the world,and exploring the links between them. Understanding the causes the differences and inequalities between places and social groups underly much of the newer developments in human geography.

Geography provides an ideal framework for relating other fields of knowledge.Geography is,in the broadest sense,an education for life and for living. Learning through geography helps us to be more socially and enviromentally sensitive,better informed,and more responsible as citizens

Intent:  What do we intend for our pupils to learn?

At Kingsley St John’s Primary School our aims are to fulfil the requirements of the National Curriculum for Geography; providing a broad, balanced and inclusive curriculum; ensuring the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills. We aim to inspire in all our pupils a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people ,providing all our pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources, and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of our planet’s key physical and human processes.

The aims of teaching geography in our school are:

• To enable children to know about the location of the world’s continents, countries, cities, seas and oceans.
• To give a particular focus to the study of local geography to enable children to understand and appreciate their locality.
• To develop the skills of interpreting a range of sources of geographical information, including maps, diagrams, globes, aerial photographs and Geographical Information Systems.
• To help children understand how the human and physical features of a place can change over time.
• To enable children to progressively develop their geographical skills (including fieldwork) throughout their school journey.

Implementation: How is geography taught and assessed in order to build pupils knowledge and enable them to apply that knowledge as skills?

At Kingsley St John’s, we provide a high-quality geography curriculum that has been designed and sequenced to equip our pupils with a secure, coherent geographical knowledge of their locality, Britain and the wider world.

     

Learning starts in Reception with children learning about their personal geography and developing an understanding of the school grounds and the village locations beyond the school gates (such as the local church and playground).

In Key Stage 1, pupils explore their local communities and the four countries of the United Kingdom and develop an understanding of the physical and human features, and how land is used in different ways.

In Key Stage 2 pupils learn about the local Frodsham area which is surrounded by a network of waterways, with this in mind pupils learn about rivers, canals and bodies of water by exploring those that they live in close proximity to such as the River Weaver. Building on this pupils compare the physical and human geography of our local area with that of other world countries.

Pupils develop their skills as geographers through fieldwork, learning how to ask and answer geographical questions ,develop their map work skills, learn how to use globes, maps and plans and use geography vocabulary to describe and explain.

Reading across the curriculum

We use high quality texts to support our geography topics and enrich our wider curriculum. Each teacher provides a wide range of fiction and non-fiction texts in their class reading area to support pupil’s curiosity and learning.

       

Curriculum Enrichment

Where possible each unit of work is enriched by a school trip or school visitor. For example, Class 1 and 2 explore and map our local village and school grounds whilst Class 3 visit the River Weaver and take a trip on the Danny. Class 4 visit a British capital city and discover the human and physical geography of our major cities. Visits to local factories such as Rolls Royce enable the pupils to identify and recognise the impact of human geography on the local area.

 

Impact: How do we know our geography curriculum is effective?

At Kingsley St John’s we believe that if our pupils have become knowledgeable and effective geographers they will be able to talk with knowledge and confidence on the range of topics studied, describe and make links between places & features, suggest relevant geographical questions and issues and describe and start to explain geographical processes using the correct terminology.

This is why pupil voice is such an important tool in measuring progress and impact

The work in our topic and curriculum books will be of a consistently high quality and will incorporate learning from other areas of the curriculum and our discovery curricululm

For more information regarding the history and geography curriculum please contact Mrs Gibson senco@kingsley-st-johns.cheshire.sch.uk

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