Topic
How we teach Topic At Palfrey Junior School
Topic consists of History and Geography which are predominantly taught discretely but do overlap at times. Our overall aim in both subjects is to make our curriculum relevant, engaging and appropriately challenging.
History 
In History we encourage our children from the first term in year 3 to develop as ‘young historians’, and sometimes refer to them in year 3 as ‘History Detectives’. This provides excitement and engagement in learning straight away. Using overarching questions, we focus on people’s lives and developments during a certain period, which helps the learner to understand the complexity of people’s lives over time. We provide a variety of learning activities and try to use a variety of resources for example theatre presentations, power points, videos, comprehension activities, pieces of art, biographies, and extracts from books or newspapers. We encourage children to take part in Talk Homework, which often requires research, model making, artwork, or design technology, which is usually completed, with parents or older siblings/ other family members. In our differentiated planning we take due regard of factors such as classroom organisation, learning materials and the learning environment. Creative theme days and Inspire workshops also greatly enhance our children’s learning in this area as well as involving parents too. All children have access to the curriculum, regardless of academic ability. In our planning, we have made meaningful links between History and other subject areas of the National Curriculum and to Spiritual, Moral Social and Cultural Development (SMSC). All children have 2 hours of History per week every other half term.
Geography 
At our school, we want pupils to become better geographers and we achieve this by planning for what becoming better at Geography entails; challenging, and supporting our pupils as they progress through the school. We use overarching questions to achieve this, which encourages our pupils to take increasing responsibility for their learning, think independently and achieve challenging subject outcomes. All of the time we have interesting activities and fun learning planned. The study of geography involves pupils in exploring the relationship and interactions between people and the environments in which they live and upon which they depend on a personal, local, national and global level. We plan for pupils to make and use maps, atlases, look at satellite and GIS imagery and globes regularly. We also expect pupils to record their work in a variety of ways, including diagrams, illustrations, pictures, letters, posters, annotated drawings and maps, reports, PowerPoints and accounts, pupils also make oral presentations of their work. Geography at our school will help to prepare our pupils for life in the 21st century with all of its currently unknown possibilities. We provide and encourage children to take part in Talk Homework, which often requires research, model making, map work, artwork, or design technology, which is usually completed, with parents or older siblings/ other family members. Creative theme days and Inspire workshops also greatly enhance our children’s learning in this area as well as involving parents too. All children have access to the curriculum, regardless of academic ability. In our planning, we have made meaningful links between History and other subject areas of the National Curriculum and to Spiritual, Moral Social and Cultural Development (SMSC). All children have 2 hours of History per week every other half term.
For further information, please refer to the Topic Policy.