Geography & History

At Deepcar St John’s C of E Junior School we believe that a high-quality geography curriculum should inspire in the children a curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will remain with them for the rest of their lives.

Children investigate a diverse range of places, both in Britain and abroad, to help develop their knowledge and understanding of the Earth’s physical and human processes. We aim for children to have opportunities to investigate and make enquiries about their local area of Deepcar, Sheffield, so that they can develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes our local area so unique and special. We want children to enjoy and love learning about geography, not just through experiences in the classroom, but also with the use of fieldwork and educational visits.

Geography is, by nature, an investigative subject. Our teaching aims to ensure the progressive development of geographical concepts, knowledge and skills. Through our teaching, we intend to provoke thought whereby children will ask questions and also have to skills to discover answers to these questions.

Children at Deepcar St. John’s will display the following characteristics of a geographer:

· An excellent knowledge of where places are and what they are like.

· A comprehensive understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated.

· An extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary.

· Fluency in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques.

· The ability to reach clear conclusions and explain their findings.

· Excellent fieldwork skills as well as other geographical skills and techniques.

· The ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current issues in society and the environment.

· A genuine interest in the subject and a real sense of curiosity about the world and the people who live here.

Geography, at Deepcar St John’s, is taught in each year group as part of a termly topic, with the addition of one-off ‘geography days’ or lessons where needed to ensure all knowledge and skills relevant to each year group are covered.

The knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum have been broken down and planned for across the key stage to ensure progression, with further input into the progression of skills specifically from Chris Quigley’s Essentials curriculum.

Each teacher is given the specific knowledge and skills that children are required to cover in each of the topics for their year group, which has been mapped out and is overseen by the geography co-ordinator. Teachers use this in planning lessons to tailor them to the interests and needs of the children in their class.

Each topic will begin with a ‘hook’ to engage and excite children. They will use this to begin to think about what they know already and would like to find out. Teachers use the children’s input in this initial lesson, along with targeted questioning to assess the children’s prior knowledge and are then able to adapt the series of lessons within that topic accordingly.

We also use knowledge mats for each topic to provide children with the key vocabulary and knowledge required for that topic, along with suggestions of additional books and websites which they can use to deepen their learning. These knowledge mats are used at the beginning of the topic as part of the introduction and are then available every lesson. Children are provided with copies to have at home and we look back at the knowledge mats throughout the year to help children retain knowledge.

We are exceptionally lucky at Deepcar St John’s to have an extensive outdoor space and teachers use this as well as visits and walks in the local area for fieldwork opportunities. They are also encouraged to take the children on at least one educational visit per year linked to one or more of their topics.

Before each half-term holiday, children are set a ‘homework menu’ linked to their topic where they can choose a task based on something they’d like to learn more about and work on researching and presenting their learning in a variety of ways which link to other areas of the curriculum.

Cross-curricular links are made and prepared for in the long-term planning for the year.

We teach the following topics, some of which are more heavily geography or history weighted, but all include some skills from both and each year group has an equal coverage of history and geography across that year.

Year 3

Ancient Egyptians

Our Valley (part 1)

Europe

Year 4

Stone Age to Iron Age

Invaders and Settlers

Year 5

America

The Romans

Our Valley (part 2)

Year 6

Ancient Greece

Extreme Earth

Our children will be confident geographers and be able to clearly and enthusiastically discuss their learning from past and current topics. We will assess this through pupil voice

Children will have had the opportunity to explore the outdoor learning environments both within the school grounds and the local community

Children will have had opportunities to develop skills as part of educational visits

Children’s work is assessed against Chilli Challenges: Chilli 2 being a task set at their age-related expectation and Chilli 3 being a task to go deeper in their learning (Chilli 1 would be selected if the child had completed the age-related task with additional support). These ongoing formative assessments provide evidence for a summative assessment at the end of the Autumn, Spring and Summer term

We also measure impact through work scrutinies. Theme books are passed up through school allowing us to see how the quality of work improves year on year as well as the progression of skills

Children’s work is celebrated on displays around school and photographs are uploaded onto the school website and social media accounts.

To investigate places

To investigate patterns

To communicate geographically

History is about people and events from the past and the influence on the lives, customs and beliefs of people in the world today. At Deepcar St John’s C of E Junior School we believe that a high quality history curriculum should inspire in the children a curiosity to find out more about the past and also equip them with the skills to link their findings to their relevance in the world today.

By linking learning to a range of topics, children gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past and that of the wider world, developing a strong sense of chronology. Our teaching aims to ensure the progressive development of historical concepts, knowledge and skills, enabling children to think and act as historians. Through our teaching, we intend to provoke thought whereby children will ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, and develop perspective and judgement which they can communicate historically.

As part of a local history study, we aim for children to have opportunities to investigate and make enquiries about their local area of Deepcar, Sheffield, so that they can develop a real sense of who they are, their heritage and what makes our local area so unique and special.

Children at Deepcar St. John’s will display the following characteristics of a historian:

· Learning from a curriculum which provides them with an excellent knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes.

· Learning about the concept of chronology which underpins children’s developing sense of a period of time, as well as key concepts such as change and causation.

· To be able to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences.

· The ability to support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using historical evidence derived from a range of sources.

· The ability to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry.

· A respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgements.

· Having opportunities to develop a sense of curiosity about the past and how and why people interpret the past in different ways.

 History, at Deepcar St John’s, is taught in each year group as part of a termly topic, with the addition of one-off ‘history days’ or lessons where needed to ensure all knowledge and skills relevant to each year group are covered.

The history curriculum is taught chronologically where possible. Any exceptions to this are where certain history topics have been carefully chosen for specific year groups based on the content and skills required being most suited to an upper or lower key stage group.

The concept of chronology is built through timelines and time boxes. Timelines are clearly displayed in every classroom and referred to frequently throughout the year wherever connections can me made (for example with scientific discoveries or looking at the time setting for a particular book in English). Time boxes are used at the start of each new topic to revisit key dates, events and people from the children’s prior learning and to help develop the children’s understanding of where things fits with the new topic in history.

The knowledge and skills stated in the National Curriculum have been broken down and planned for across the key stage to ensure progression, with further input into the progression of skills specifically from Chris Quigley’s Essentials curriculum.

Each teacher is given the specific knowledge and skills that children are required to cover in each of the topics for their year group, which has been mapped out and is overseen by the history co-ordinator. Teachers use this in planning lessons to tailor them to the interests and needs of the children in their class. ‘Key Stage History’ is often used as a foundation for planning history lessons but not exclusively.

Each topic will begin with a ‘hook’ to engage and excite children. They will use this to begin to think about what they know already and would like to find out. Teachers use the children’s input in this initial lesson, along with targeted questioning to assess the children’s prior knowledge and are then able to adapt the series of lessons within that topic accordingly.

We also use knowledge mats for each topic to provide children with the key vocabulary and knowledge required for that topic, along with suggestions of additional books and websites which they can use to deepen their learning. These knowledge mats are used at the beginning of the topic as part of the introduction and are then available every lesson. Children are provided with copies to have at home and we look back at the knowledge mats throughout the year to help children retain knowledge.

Teachers are encouraged to take the children on at least one educational visit per year linked to one or more of their topics.

Before each half-term holiday, children are set a ‘homework menu’ linked to their topic where they can choose a task based on something they’d like to learn more about and work on researching and presenting their learning in a variety of ways which link to other areas of the curriculum.

Cross-curricular links are made and prepared for in the long-term planning for the year.

We teach the following topics, some of which are more heavily geography or history weighted, but all include some skills from both and each year group has an equal coverage of history and geography across that year.

Year 3

Ancient Egyptians

Our Valley (part 1)

Europe

Year 4

Stone Age to Iron Age

Invaders and Settlers

Year 5

America

The Romans

Our Valley (part 2)

Year 6

Ancient Greece

Extreme Earth

Our children will be confident historians and be able to clearly and enthusiastically discuss their learning from past and current topics. We will assess this through pupil voice

Children will have had opportunities to develop skills as part of educational visits (including their local area)

Children’s work is assessed against Chilli Challenges: Chilli 2 being a task set at their age-related expectation and Chilli 3 being a task to go deeper in their learning (Chilli 1 would be selected if the child had completed the age-related task with additional support). These ongoing formative assessments provide evidence for a summative assessment at the end of the Autumn, Spring and Summer term.

We also measure impact through work scrutinies. Theme books are passe up through school allowing us to see how the quality of work improves year on year as well as the progression of skills.

Children’s work is celebrated on displays around school and photographs are uploaded onto the school website and social media accounts.

To investigate and interpret the past

To understand chronology To build an overview of world history

To communicate historically

Knowledge Mats provide information on subject specific language, important facts and recommended books to read.