Teach Primary Issue 18.5

Create a humanities curriculum that reflects the needs of your school, say Claire Watson and Kate Kellner-Dilks T he national curriculum sets out attainment targets for history and geography for primary schools, but there is so much choice in exactly what schools may teach and explore. This is wonderful, because it allows us to make choices that are suitable for the specific context of our school; however, it can also be difficult to know where to start. Even if you've purchased a scheme of work to help with planning, it will likely still need to be adapted to fit your context, locality and children. Where to start? Take a step back from the curriculum and think about your school and the community it serves: • Who are your children? What are their backgrounds and heritages? • What are the different cultures of the children and their families? • Where is your school, and what is it like to live in the school’s locality? • Do your children have any gaps that your curriculum could help fill? For example, do many of your children experience the British seaside, or visit farms or museums? Reflections Create 'windows and mirrors’ in the curriculum to reflect pupils' lives and inspire them. This might be through the significant people you choose to investigate, the locations you explore in geography, or the experts you invote to the classroom or field trip. Moving beyond the ‘heroes’ of history, or the cliché locations for geography, allows us to be ambitious in the way we weave together content so that it (sensitively and appropriately) portrays the real challenges of the world in which we live. In doing so, we also acknowledge that every pupil should feel connected to our curriculum and that they play a significant part in what comes next. They could be the musician, artist, designer, historian, architect or inventor we study in years to come. Having a curriculum that does not reflect children’s identities, build belonging or broaden horizons is falling short. It’s not yet doing its job and needs further work. Creating your curriculum Working on a curriculum is no small or easy task. You may need to begin by choosing those small tweaks that can have the biggest impact. We suggest that as you review your curriculum, you consider these six areas for improvement: 1 Think carefully about the demographics of your school. What ethnic heritages do your pupils have? What is important to the people in your community? What is significant about the location of the school? Do your curriculum choices reflect your findings? 2 Think about the significant people that the children study in history during KS1. Are some of them from similar ethnic backgrounds to those of the children in your school? This will help pupils ‘see’ themselves reflected in the curriculum. Is there representation of people across genders, races and time periods, including some from the present day? 3 In history, geography and religious education, have you chosen significant experts in these fields to study that represent a range of genders, ages, backgrounds, races, ethnicities, etc? Have any of them ever lived near your school or in your area? 4 When choosing places to study as part of your geography curriculum, have you chosen to represent the heritages of your pupils, or are you making choices that will offer a view of a place pupils may never otherwise have learned about? 5 When designing your religious education curriculum have you thought about contacting the various groups of parents that form part of your school community for their perspectives on what is important about their culture and beliefs? 6 When studying units of work in history and geography that involve the local area, make sure that you have researched thoroughly. You should understand how the area has changed and why, and what significant places and people there were, or are, locally. Think about how the area may change in the future and how that might impact the locality. Building a curriculum that supports all children to develop positive self-identity, have broad horizons and experience success is key to empowering your pupils and helping them get a great education. The good news is, it’s something that is absolutely within your power to deliver. TP A window into THE WORLD www.teachwire.net | 27 HUMAN I T I E S Claire Watson and Kate Kellner-Dilks are primary curriculum advisers for HFLEducation. For more information about HFL training and resources to help you develop your history curriculum and subject knowledge, visit hub. hfleducation.org