Mab’s Cross Community Primary School
Primary Humanities Policy
This policy was written in light of the Primary Curriculum Review 2009 (DCSF 2009) and the integration of history and geography within the HGSU area of learning. It aims to give an overarching view of those subjects in combination.
- AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
Learning in primary humanities begins with deepening children’s’ understanding of themselves, the people around them, their communities and eventually the wider world.
Curriculum aims
This area of learning contributes to the achievement of the curriculum aims set out in the Primary Curriculum Review (DSCF 2009) F for all young people to become:
• successful learners who enjoy learning, make progress and achieve
• confident individuals who are able to live safe, healthy and fulfilling lives
• responsible citizens who make a positive contribution to society.
Children’s lives will be enriched if their curiosity is encouraged by talking and exploring and thinking about the variety of physical and human conditions in the past, present and future.
This area of learning stimulates children’s curiosity to investigate the world and their place within it. Engaging children in questions about people and events in the past helps them understand the present and prepare for the future. Understanding people’s relationships with the physical and built environment helps them form ideas about how to live. They learn about the impact of their actions on the planet and understand the importance of developing a future that is sustainable. Through exploring cultures, beliefs, faiths, values, human rights and responsibilities, children develop a deeper understanding of themselves and others, and a sense of belonging.
Historical, geographical and social understanding encourages children to interpret the world around them, from the local to the global. They become aware of how communities are organised and shaped by people’s values and actions, and how communities can live and work together. They begin to understand how events that happened long ago or in other countries can affect our lives today and how we can help shape the future.
In these ways, children learn about similarities, differences, diversity and how we live in an interdependent world. They learn about right and wrong, fairness and unfairness, justice and injustice. Their growing understanding helps them make sense of the world and prepares them to play an active role as informed, responsible citizens.
The children are part of the society that surrounds them and they have an impulse to be curious about what they see and about the people among whom they live. As they grow they need to understand progressively the interdependence of lands, of peoples, of cultures and of generations within a global ecosystem. Without an historical and geographical perspective, children may build themselves a distorted picture of the world. The objective of humanities teaching in Mab’s Cross Community Primary School is to foster a desire for learning which will continue for the rest of the children’s lives.
Enquiry and Communication
We believe that studying history and geography are investigative processes which require an attitude of enquiry, whether as part of a thematic or subject based approach. Children must have the opportunity to ask questions, analyse information and communicate knowledge and understanding. By developing children’s questioning, we aim to ensure that history and geography help children to explore causes, impacts and consequences leading to sound knowledge, understanding and skill development.
Enjoyment and a Sense of Purpose
We see these as vital elements of our humanities teaching. We aim to foster a sense of enjoyment and recognise the importance of spontaneity and excitement in learning. Children must also see a purpose in what they are doing and why they are doing it.
The Link between Home and School
This should be encouraged. Participation from parents and family is vitally important as the child’s viewpoint of the world is moving from an egocentric to a more socio centric stance. Teachers have a responsibility to build on children’s prior experience of the world – directly and indirectly – and build on it to interpret new experiences.
Spiritual, Moral and Spiritual /Aesthetic Awareness
We aim to encourage awareness that other people have different personalities, cultures, habits and practices. We also aim to develop empathy, the capacity to begin to understand the viewpoints of others without necessarily agreeing with them. Much of the subject matter of history and geography rouses implicit or explicit moral questions. As children’s ability to understand interpretations of history develops, they will be able to explore conflicting viewpoints which will help them to identify and thus challenge racial or other forms of prejudice and stereotyping. In geography, we aim to help pupils build an informed and balanced view of the world and their place in it. We also aim to encourage aesthetic awareness and a sense of wonder in the appreciation of the beauty in natural and manmade phenomena.
Good Citizenship, International Understanding and Environmental Awareness
We aim to foster the idea of good citizenship and community responsibility and to stimulate children’s interests and value judgements in issues at local, national, European and global levels. This involves developing an informed concern for the world in which we live, for its people and for the natural environment. Also, where possible, to realise that concern in practical action. This should help to develop in children a positive self-image, leading to confidence and a sense of their own power and an ability to influence their own and other people’s future. In a world of change, it is important to prepare children for changes and encouraging autonomy implies that a child will be able to exercise choice.
Fieldwork
We believe that fieldwork is an important way of stimulating children in both history and geography and should be a purposeful and integral part of our planning. We aim to create a minimum entitlement of fieldwork for every child. We also aim to make as full as possible use of the school site and the immediate locality
Cross-Curricular Links
There are important relationships between the historical and geographical area (HGSU) and the rest of the curriculum. All subjects have an historical dimension and history allows children to develop skills including communication, numeracy, problem solving, information handling and study skills. Geography has links, too, with the development of mathematical skills, scientific investigation and I.C.T. for example.
Our aim is to explore opportunities to complement and enrich other areas of the curriculum wherever such opportunities exist through thematic, cross-curricular approaches as well as subject focussed activities.
2. ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Each member of the teaching staff will have the responsibility for the teaching of geography and history and they will need to ensure that their own knowledge is continually updated.
The school has Humanities / History/ Geography co-ordinator to assist this process and take specific responsibility for history and geography issues in the school.
It is his/ her responsibility to:
- support colleagues in teaching the subject content
- monitor current practice
- instigate and organise teaching programmes, planning documents and schemes of work where necessary
- develop a school policy
- resource the curriculum
- facilitate the assessment of children’s work
- be a consultant to colleagues in planning the Humanities content of their teaching
- keep people informed of possible visits and courses
- maintain geography and history curriculum elements of planning which include medium term plans
4. ENTITLEMENT
Geography and History are two of the subjects in the HGSU area of learning established by the Primary Curriculum Review 2009 and children are required to follow the areas of study in order to achieve particular levels of attainment which cover:
Essential knowledge
Children should build secure knowledge of the following:
a. how the present has been shaped by the past, through developing a sense of chronology, exploring change and continuity over time, and understanding why things happened
b. how and why places and environments develop, how they can be sustained and how they may change in the future
c. how identities develop, what we have in common, what makes us different and how we organise ourselves and make decisions within communities
d. how people, communities and places are connected and can be interdependent.
Key skills
1.These are the skills that children need to learn to make progress and to be able to take informed and responsible action:
a. undertake investigations and enquiries, using various methods, media and sources
b. compare, interpret and analyse different types of evidence from a range of sources
c. present and communicate findings in a range of ways and develop arguments and explanations using appropriate specialist vocabulary and techniques
d. consider, respond to and debate alternative viewpoints
Breadth of learning
a. The range of learning should encompass local, national and global contexts. In these contexts, children should learn about the ways people, communities, places and environments have changed over time, and how they are interconnected.
b. Through the study of people and communities, children should find out about the main political and social institutions that affect their lives. They should have opportunities to find out about issues and take action to improve things in their communities and make a positive contribution to society. They should engage with different representatives from the community
c. Children should explore issues of justice, rights and responsibilities in their own contexts, as well as issues affecting the wider world.
d. Children should use fieldwork, first-hand experience and secondary sources
to find out about a range of places and environments, including their own locality, a contrasting area in the UK and a different locality in another country.
e. Children should explore views and opinions about local and global issues including sustainability, climate change, poverty, resource use and recycling.
f. They should develop and extend local and global links through communications and collaboration tools
g. The study of the past should include aspects of local, British and world history. Children should have opportunities to study the past in outline and in depth, covering different societies and periods of history from ancient times to modern day. They should use dates and vocabulary concerned with the passing of time, placing events, people and changes within a broad chronological framework.
h. Children should use a range of sources of information and visit historic buildings, museums, galleries and sites
5. WHERE DOES HUMANITIES HAPPEN?
• As a major focus in a unit (see appendix)
• As a smaller element in a unit
• As a discrete lesson
• As a talk/presentation given by visitors
• Arising out of class discussion
• In story time
• Through display in the classroom and around the school
• In extra-curricular clubs
• As part of assembly
6. TEACHING & LEARNING STYLES
We believe that good teaching in Humanities should reflect the School Policy which requires the use of a variety of teaching and learning strategies. This is so important in sustaining children’s interest. We will include the following in our planning:
• Presentation from pupil
• Knowledge given by the teacher
• Story telling
• Fieldwork, visits to museums and historic sites – individual investigation, group investigation, interviewing, questionnaire surveys field sketching/recording
• Questions and answers
• Individual and group work
• Investigations and enquiries – resolving a problem set
• Use of television, radio, tape, video and film
• Creative activities, e.g. model making and painting
• Use of book, booklets, worksheets, leaflets, maps, plans and atlases
• Role-play and drama – simulation of situations
• Discussion and debate – group, pairs, class
• Use of I.C.T.
• Games – playing games relating to learning devising games relating to learning
7. PROGRESSION
Progression is built into our topic and subject themes. Concepts and important skills are introduced appropriately and are then revisited in different contexts. Tasks have to be devised which enable the children to explore the content as well as to develop skills and concepts, in order to ensure a measure of challenge for children of different aptitudes. This spiral curriculum also ensures that skill and conceptual development occurs not in isolation but in appropriate contexts.
8. DIFFERENTIATION
Children are taught in mixed ability classes. Class teachers have the responsibility for meeting the needs of the most and least able children and thus need a range of teaching and learning strategies that can build on the interests, abilities and experiences of ALL the children in the class.
Differentiation requires class teachers to link planning, teaching and learning, assessment and evaluation in a cycle to identify and match task to needs.
We believe effective learning is most likely to occur when:
• Children have the opportunity to clarify tasks and have a clear purpose
• Children have the opportunity to work collaboratively, contributing their strengths and seeking support where necessary
• Teachers have identified what children already know through brainstorming, topic webs or concept maps so that teachers and children can determine what needs to be done.
This would allow for a range of starting points and give children responsibility for their own learning.
• Teachers listen and talk to children questioning, clarifying and extending the children’s thinking and planning. Some children will need more teacher intervention and support than others. This intervention may mean identifying alternative resources or tasks, or it might be an extension question to develop the child’s thinking or line of enquiry.
9. INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY
The requirements of the Primary Curriculum Review [2010] includes this statement:
“Pupils should be given opportunities* to apply and develop their ICT capability through the use of ICT tools to support their learning in all subjects…….”
We believe there is little doubt that humanities learning can be enhanced through the use of ICT and we also believe that ICT will play an increasingly important role in the development of children’s knowledge, skills and understanding.
We have three broad objectives to form a basis for this entitlement:
• To enhance their skills of enquiry with databases, spreadsheets and other software
• To provide a range of information sources to enhance their knowledge by providing access to historical knowledge and a knowledge of the culture and character of places using access to CD/ROM, e.g. encyclopaedia, atlas.
• To contribute to children’s awareness of the impact of I.T. on a changing world by creating opportunities to discuss how computers are used today and how they have developed.
10. RESOURCES
Most units lend themselves to the use of a range of resources. These resources are constantly being developed and added to. Most resource materials are kept by the year group responsible for teaching a particular unit but some more general and thematic materials are kept by the Humanities Co-ordinator. The resources used in humanities include:
• artefacts
• books – reference and literature
• newspapers
• music/dance/drama
• local and personal records
• photographs
• posters
• cartoons
• film, video and slides
• places, buildings and sites
• human resources – adult visitors
• taped accounts
• maps
• displays and exhibitions
11. ASSESSMENT, RECORDING AND RECORD KEEPING
We view ASSESSMENT as an integral pat of teaching and enabling teachers to:
• identify what has been taught and learnt
• monitor children’s progress through the established National Curriculum Levels
• establish children’s needs as a basis for future planning and teaching
We assess children by:
• observing them – individually and in groups
• questioning, talking and listening to them
• looking at materials produced by them and discussing these materials with them
RECORDING in Humanities must be straightforward, manageable and understandable to
those who need to use the information. Records are kept by class teachers in such a way
that they are helpful both in planning and as a basis for reporting children’s progress.
We believe that the INVOLVEMENT OF CHILDREN in assessing their own work helps them
to understand better their own strengths and needs.
Children’s self-esteem can only be enhanced by increased awareness of their own progress.
Children will record their Humanities knowledge, skills and understanding in a number of ways:
• discussion and debate with each other or the teacher
• in writing – including narrative, analysis, explanation and description
• presentations to the class, year group or school
• displays/exhibitions – using models, visual and written work, photographs, graphs, maps,
charts, audio-visual
• drama/role play
• evaluations of their work
12. MONITORING AND EVALUATION
The Humanities curriculum team will meet regularly, at least once each term, to review and evaluate Humanities work within the school.
The Humanities co-ordinator has a responsibility for reporting back and developing the Scheme of Work in partnership with the rest of the staff.
We believe that good Humanities teaching will be present in our school when:
• children see a purpose in what they are doing and know why they are doing it
• children have the opportunity to experience a range of teaching and learning styles
• children have the opportunity to present their work in a variety of ways
• children can access a full, colourful and interesting range of resources
• children have a programme of visits and fieldwork
• children are presented with open and investigative [enquiry] styles of learning
• we achieve, through effective planning, continuity and progression between the years and Key Stages
• we obtain evidence of attainment and diagnose learning difficulties through teacher assessment
• we appreciate the importance of language skills and the need to develop a Humanities vocabulary
• we address cross curricular themes such as Environmental Education and Citizenship
• WE SEEK TO MONITOR AND EVALUATE THE CHILDREN’S LEARNING
EXPERIENCES ON AN ONGOING BASIS
13. REVIEW AND REVISION
This policy will be implemented by the Humanities Co-ordinator and is based on the school’s understanding of History and Geography in the primary curriculum
The Policy will be reviewed in 2012