St Vincent's Catholic Primary School

“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!”
Psalm 133.1

History and Geography

History and Geography Intent

Geography

Our intention is that all young Vincentians will experience success as a geographer through our Project Based Learning (PBL) approach responding to a driving question. These projects are directly linked to our Vincentian Values.

Geography gives the children an opportunity to explore and investigate questions in order to understand the world they live in. PBL and cross curricular links with Geography inspire curiosity in their learning and fascination about the world and its people.

St Vincent’s aim is to equip our children with Geographical skills and knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As our children progress, they will develop a contextual knowledge of place, of seas and oceans including defining physical and human characteristics. Their growing knowledge about the world and geographical skills should help them to deepen their understanding of the interaction between Physical and Human features/processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and environments. Fieldwork is integral to involving pupils in practical geographical research and enquiry.

History

Our intention is that all young Vincentians will experience success as a historian through a cross curricular way through our Project Based Learning (PBL) approach responding to a driving question. These projects are directly linked to our Vincentian Values. History helps children as they progress through school to understand the world in which they live, in the context of both the past and the present, as well as develop our children into educated global citizens for the modern 21st Century world.

History helps our pupils to understand the complexity of people’s lives, the process of change, the diversity of societies and relationships between different groups, as well as their own identity and the challenges of their time. It also links with spiritual, moral, social and cultural development e.g. child labour in Victorian Britain, significance of Remembrance Day as part of World War II.

The Historical skills developed include enquiry (asking questions), critical thinking, weighing evidence, sifting through arguments, and allowing children to develop their wider perspective and judgement. They will also learn and understand about placing events and people from the past in chronological order, summarising events from periods of history and elaborating on what happened – enriching their knowledge of the past.

The study of history builds on their prior learning, involves engaging pupils in investigating questions about people and events in the past, in order to enable them to better understand their lives today, and to prepare them for their future – building a sense of interconnectedness, interdependency, belonging, empathy, solidarity, diversity and responsibility.

Geography National Curriculum Objectives

Click link above to download a copy of the Department of Education's Geography national curriculum objectives.

History National Curriculum Objectives

Click link above to download a copy of the Department of Education's History national curriculum objectives.

Curriculum Intent

At St Vincent’s it is our INTENT is to enable ALL children to thrive through the opportunities we provide them with, in order to:

Curriculum Context

St Vincent’s is a 1.5 form entry school with 285 children ranging from 4 -11. Children come predominantly from the parishes of Sacred Heart in Mill Hill and St Anthony’s in Edgware.

Children come from a diverse range of socio-economic backgrounds, speak 17 different languages and hail from 26 different ethnic groups. The curriculum we present, and promote, to the children is an endeavour to reflect these differences by providing opportunities to explore the different countries, languages and customs our children are part of through the projects they investigate. We have looked closely at the context of our school, the backgrounds of the children and how life is for a child growing up in North London today. We have used the underlying principles of our Catholic Faith and the example of our namesake St Vincent to create a set of values which lie at the heart of our curriculum.

We are aware of the changing nature of society and the pressures faced by young children as they enter the next stage of their education. The rise in Mental Health related issues has been widely documented across the media. Therefore, issues such as internet safety and the enormous impact across society of social media are at the forefront of our minds when planning our curriculum. With the current worldwide concerns relating to Covid 19, racial justice, equality and diversity, as well as gender and economic background, we feel it is our duty to prepare the children through a concerted focus on building independence, resilience and communication skills linked to our Vincentian Values.