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Underpinning: Underpinning all of our decisions, subject-specific foci and overall balance are our aims for what we would like the children of Good Shepherd to be and to have experienced. We have worked to ensure a complementary balance throughout each year and across years that ensures breadth, depth and the opportunity to spiral and progress learning.
Our Themes will run for a term in order to allow sufficient time for children to explore subjects in detail and to give the scope for our more able children to showcase their higher order thinking skills. Explicit drivers have been established for each theme to ensure that the sense of purpose remains clear throughout. Year groups will follow the same central driver so that wider school opportunities can be taken to reinforce learning and for more effective subject leader monitoring. The main drivers are History and Geography because of their importance in children understanding the world around them. Other subjects have been mapped out to supplement these throughout. These core areas will also be revisited at outlined opportunities throughout the year as best practice of spiralling curricula.
The aim of the Key Stage One theme curriculum is to develop and enhance children’s basic skills within History. The theme curriculum will build on the children’s learning and experiences from early years and equip them with the essential knowledge and skills to thrive within Key Stage Two.
Within Year One, the children will build on their experiences from early years focusing on developing their knowledge of their own personal history, their local area. In Year Two, children will begin to develop a more rigorous understanding of their local area, wider surroundings and how this compares to other areas of the world.
Geography has been structured with a sense of proximity to Coventry. Key Stage 1 starts with the immediate area, before moving to city of Coventry and England’s coast. It finishes with an understanding of the British Isles. Our first geographical topic in KS2 is Europe (building on the idea that countries can combine into larger bodies). Studies then move to two different continents before covering a larger global topic. Again, the platforms for social justice conversations have been considered with the sequencing of topics. Another key factor in geographical decisions has been the profile of our academies, with Europe and Africa providing opportunities for parental engagement.
In addition to the formal structure of termly topics, we have outlined additional enrichment opportunities. These will have a whole-school focus and present opportunities to supplement core learning, ensure breadth of coverage and to respond to current affairs and issues.
