Humanities

At Riversdale, we aim to provide a humanities education that inspires curiosity and fascination about the world and its people.

Geography:

Our geography curriculum is designed to nurture children's inate inquisitive nature. We endeavour to equip pupils with knowledge about diverse places and people, explore and understand natural and man-made locales and build a deep understanding of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As the pupils progress through the curriculum, they will use their developing knowledge and skills to explore the interconnected nature of the world and how the globe has changed over time. Conservation is a key theme of the school's currriculum. As such, the pupils will explore their role in protecting the planet and addressing the negative impact of human choices.

History:

In history, we aim to provide a high-quality education that not only helps pupils gain a coherent knowledge and understanding of Britain’s past, but how the achivements of other civilisations have impacted our development. Our curriculum supports pupils in developing their skills as historians, as they learn to to ask perceptive questions, think critically, weigh evidence, sift arguments, explore different perspectives and use these to make their own judgements.

Religious Education:

We offer a broad and rich RE curriculum to allow children to develop a holistic understanding of the religions and religious viewpoints within the UK. Our curriculum supports pupils in learning about religion and belief, but also learn from religion and belief. The children are encouraged to think deeply about moral questions and apply their learning about and from different religious perspectives to explore their answers to these. The RE curriculum aims to promote inquisitive minds, respect, tolerance and understanding for everyone in socierty including themselves and understand the relevance of RE in the modern world.

Curriculum Progression

At Riversdale Primary School we believe in the importance of all children developing a deep understanding of the humanities and in embedding the substantive knowledge and disciplinary skills into their long-term memory. As such, the progression of history, geography and RE have been carefully mapped, with a consideration to connected subject matter and opportunities to revisit specific concepts over time.

You can find a copy of the 2024-25 Geography Progression Document here.

You can find a copy of the 2024-25 History Progression Document here.

You can find a copy of the 2024-25 RE Progression Document here.

Lesson Delivery

Pupils will undertake a humanities lesson once a week (alternating history and geography fortnightly), in addition to an RE lesson once a week. In each lesson, the children have carefully selected facts that they will learn (substantive knowledge), in conjunction with developing and consolidating specific disciplinary skills. For example, in Year 3, Autumn 1 history, children will study the stone age, bronze age and iron age, whislt exploring the concept of chronology and how time periods progressed into the next, or took place simultaneously in other regions of the world.

Class teachers will use a wide range of means to impart the desired knowledge such as through the use of technology, role play and specific text books. To further support their learning, pupils have the opportunity to go on trips that complement the subjects and these have included visiting The Ragged School, various places of worship and local environmental studies such as the Rivers Thames and Wandle.

Pupils are provided with a Knowledge Organiser that:

outlines prior learning that they will be building upon,
lists the sequence of lessons so that pupils know what they are studying,
identifies the most significant knowledge that they should gain
includes images of key concepts, or significant examples to provide additional context for the pupils
defines the subject specific terminology that they are expected to learn and use.

You can find the 2024-25 Autumn Term Knowledge Organisers for Geography below:

You can find the 2024-25 Autumn Term Knowledge Organisers for History below: