Pinewood Infant School and Foundation Unit 'Together we give children the roots to grow and the wings to fly'
History & Geography
History and Geography
At Pinewood we teach a knowledge based curriculum which encourages children to discover and explore. We start each learning journey with a big question or theme title and an exciting launch to help children become immersed in their learning (e.g. Why is Nottingham an awesome place to live?). We plan using this programme alongside the KS1 National curriculum and EYFS curriculum. Each theme is carefully broken down and meaningful knowledge is taught in order to develop geographical and historical understanding. We carefully pick themes and content that inspire our children’s interest, enthusiasm and curiosity. We organise our curriculum in a way that pupil knowledge is built and that they can revisit and use it in the future. Additionally we find ways to provide our children with a range of experiences to broaden their horizons.
Our Geography Intent
At Pinewood we know an effective geography curriculum means pupils ‘know more, remember more and are able to do more’. We want children to not only become knowledgeable about their locality but we also want them to find out about the world around them. The world is a huge place therefore we want pupils to find out about areas which have been thoughtfully and carefully picked. We want to develop a strong knowledge of place and encourage geographical enquiry which engages our children. We want to make geography relevant to the lives of our children; we want them to start to become investigators of geographical issues as they progress through key stage 2 so we need to equip them with the geographical knowledge to lead the way for this during KS1. Throughout our curriculum we want to build upon the pupil’s knowledge of human and physical processes and features and teach them about a range of environments. We want our children to experience looking at maps, atlases and carefully picked out stories that have a geographical content. We also want children to begin to gain an understanding of important environmental issues.
Most of all we want our children to be little explorers with a thirst of knowledge about our world!
Launch - Bodies of water treasure hunt
Mapping fun!
Geography Visit to Nottingham Castle
Exploring Arnold!
Seasonal weather patterns!
Winter walk to Hobbucks Nature Reserve to identify seasonal weather changes.
Autumn walk to the Hobbucks Nature reserve to explore their local environment and identify seasonal weather patterns.
History Intent
At Pinewood we want our children to develop their historical knowledge as they travel through a selection of significant ‘stories of the past’ that have been carefully and thoughtfully embedded within our curriculum. Though it can be hard to grasp historical concepts for young children we are passionate that our pupils leave Pinewood understanding a sense of chronology for a selection of themes that are meaningful and interest them. During their time with us we strive to provide pupils with the opportunities to build up and revisit their knowledge by repeating and enhancing themes in different contexts We want out pupils to be able to comment and describe how some things were similar and different in the past at specific periods of times to today. Additionally, we want our children to remember important knowledge about a selection of significant individuals and events from the past and understand where they fit in within a chronological framework and the context around them. We want our pupils to begin to understand how we can find out about the past through a selection of historical evidence. We want our pupils to be curious inquisitive and ask historical questions about the topics and themes taught whilst also enjoying opportunities for incidental learning.
