Humanities

We aim to give our children a rich and relevant humanities curriculum which enables them to become curious, confident and independent learners, who can explore the knowledge and skills in an exciting way. We have tailored our curriculum to make it relevant to our diverse community, making it representative and inclusive of all learners. Children have opportunities to extend their knowledge, skills and understanding; develop personal attributes; develop a greater understanding of their role in protecting our world and environment; and have a greater understanding of how they can cause positive change and development as they grow.

We adopt a cross-curricular approach so all topics are closely linked with other areas of the curriculum to allow for a deeper dive into the subject. We use a range of resources, including the Haringey Education Partnership resources developed by Christine Counsell and Steve Mastin, to create our bespoke humanities offer. Both subjects are taught weekly across the school except in KS1 where History and Geography are taught in alternate half terms.

Key vocabulary has a focal point in each lesson to ensure children’s learning is meaningful and purposeful; and to help them make further links with the rest of the curriculum.

“cross-curricular work using thinking skills benefits students of all attainment levels, and in different ways. The approach has encouraged students to see how thinking skills, like sorting and classifying, can enable them to approach a topic from a different angle. It also seems to help them see the transferability of such skills across their learning in a range of subjects. This could lead to a greater awareness of themselves as learners, and how they learn.”
(National Teacher Research Panel)

Big Questions (which require an open-ended answer) are also used and these aim to provide children with the platform to apply their understanding and develop children’s critical thinking skills, stimulate classroom discussion and explore ethical and philosophical issues.

History

At Welbourne, we become detectives who explore the past in an exciting way. History allows our children to compare and contrast, to examine how and why things have changed, to learn about historical characters and expand their research skills. We teach children to be open minded and enquiring thinkers who understand cause and effect. We want them to understand how people have lived in the past and compare this to modern life. We encourage first hand experiences through handling real artefacts and wherever possible arranging field work visits to relevant sites of historical interest or bringing in specialists for in-school workshops.

Geography

Geography at Welbourne is to inspire children’s curiosity and interest to explore the world that we live in and its people. We aim to equip the children with geographical skills to develop their knowledge through studying places, people and natural and human environments. Through our teaching, we intend to provoke thought, questions and to encourage children to discover answers to their own questions through exploration and research to enable them to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of the world and their place in it.