Intent

At Fairisle Infant and Nursery School we invite all children to explore and fully develop their understanding about the world, the country they live in and their locality.  We provide the children with a variety of learning opportunities and geographical experiences to enhance their curiosity in order to deepen their knowledge, respect and appreciation of the world we live in.

Our curriculum is designed to encourage our children to use their voice and feel confident when questioning and discussing topics of their own interest but also others where they have the opportunity to establish relations of similarities and differences in relation to their own locality. Our lessons aim to develop a subject-specific language our pupils need to use when describing and making investigations about the world they live in.

Implementation

Our curriculum is progressive and offers a range of opportunities to our pupils to be the best they can be. It starts from the study of our locality and gradually widens to other places in the country and around the world.

In the Early Years Foundation Stage, the Curriculum is child-led.  Children learn through play, first-hand experiences and by observing the adult as their role model.  They are provided with a variety of experiences that enhance their curiosity about the world.  Children observe and comment about their environment, describing animals, plants, objects and identify its features.  They describe patterns and changes over time and begin to use positional and directional language.

In Year R children widen their knowledge about the world by exploring their own fascinations within the ‘Wonder Wall day.’  Every week, each class embarks on a different adventure about the world and explores a range of cultural experiences, establishing relations of similarities and differences within objects, animals and other living things, but also comparing the past with the present. They are also encouraged to take part in cultural experiences where they discover the food, features and traditions of different countries.  The children learn about their local environment by posting a letter near Sainsbury’s.  They make simple comparisons with other places within the UK.  The children look at simple maps and create their own by recalling the places they pass by when coming to school and other familiar landmarks.

In Year 1, children continue their journey within the local area, by taking a trip to Lordshill and exploring its different places. Our children are encouraged to explore and investigate about the businesses in their local environment, identifying and describing the human and physical features they find there. They also learn about aerial photographs and create their own version of the school grounds. Children begin to learn more about the UK and the different counties within it and to label these places on the map and widen their directional and locational vocabulary when describing a route.  Their knowledge of the world is further extended, when they embark on an adventure to China. Children learn about the country and establish relations of similarities and differences between China and UK, looking at their capital cities - Beijing and London.

In Year 2, children embed their knowledge about the world by exploring the differences between hot and cold places, its features and the animals that live there.  They embark on an adventure to the past where they learn about the Titanic and its journey using maps to record all the places the ship stopped before it sank.  They also use directional and locational language to record its journey.  They learn about Lyndhurst and compare it with Lordshill, noticing similarities and differences in the environment, services and things people can do.