Why Teach Humanities?
Humanities teaches students about the world around them. It can help them to understand the environment, how it is changing, and the diverse people that live in these environments. The students will learn how the world has and is changing physically and socially, and how this may impact them. We want our students to develop an understanding of other societies and cultures and develop a tolerance and acceptance of different in it’s many forms.
Curriculum Intent
The curriculum for humanities is based around 2 key themes: Shaping our nation and Understanding the modern world. There will be relevant aspects of history, geography and citizenship within these themes.
Lower School
For Shaping the Nation, Lower school students will use maps and globes to identify continents, countries and oceans including those within the UK and their capitals. They will then focus in on their local area and be able to describe it in terms of topological features and types of settlement. This will link to the science curriculum; earth & evolution.
They will also have some understanding of the chronology of Britain from prehistoric times present day. They will choose one era to study and be able to identify key people, building & monuments and events from that era. They will be able to discuss the impact that their chosen era still has on us today.
For Understanding the Modern World lower school will use maps and globes to locate and name some countries in Europe and their capitals. They would choose one European country and one African country and be able to describe the topographical features and types of settlement, key events and people in this country’s history. They will be able to discuss the impact of global warming on their chosen counties. For their chosen countries they will be able to and be able to recall key people and events in history for that country. They will also look at what it means to be a citizen in that country in terms of culture, equality, religion, law, education and politics.
Upper School
For Shaping the Nation Upper school will cover the same topics, but look in more detail about the impact on us today. For Understanding the Modern World, they will study Europe and Russia. Upper students will also further develop their field work skills to include using a map, including OS, compass and grid references to study a local area and use scales to calculate distances.
Curriculum Implementation
Students will be taught the required knowledge for each theme, but wherever possible this will be practical and linked to outdoor education. Where it is not possible to teach through practical methods, high quality visual resources should be used to avoid an over reliance on worksheets. The student should also get the opportunity to read about their local area and their chosen countries from age appropriate material. Links to maths should be built in in the form of data analysis of local areas.
Curriculum Impact
- Name and locate the worlds continents and countries, including the UK.
- Understand how their local area has changed over time, including through fieldwork
- Compare their local area with a different culture to look at what it means to be British and Northern.