A guide to

Cambridge Primary Humanities

A guide to the Cambridge Primary Programme

Introduction

Cambridge Primary Humanities is an international curriculum that supports learners to develop their curiosity about our world and its people. Through their studies of people, the past and places, learners develop knowledge and skills to prepare them to be informed, engaged and empathetical members of their communities.

In Cambridge Primary Humanities, learners explore the world, its people and places, locally, nationally and globally, in the past, present and future. They develop knowledge, understanding and skills related to:

how the world works and changes – key concepts, events, processes and interconnections
how they make sense of the world – worldviews*, narratives, ideas, interpretations and explanations
their role in the world as informed individuals and community members
diversity in the human, natural and physical world
questioning and reflecting to broaden and deepen understanding and inform future thinking
humanities and social sciences subjects, to support progression to future study and a lifelong interest in these subjects.

* A worldview is a way of looking at the world. It is a complex set of preconceived beliefs, values and expectations about our world, that we use, consciously or unconsciously, to make sense of it. Every individual has their own personal worldview which is formed through individual life experiences and shapes how they perceive everything around them and the decisions they make.

Teaching Cambridge Primary Humanities

We provide a wide range of practical resources, detailed guidance, innovative training and professional development so that you can give your learners the best possible experience of Cambridge Primary Humanities.

We believe that for teaching and learning to be effective, there should be alignment between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. We have designed Cambridge Primary Humanities around this principle:

Oriental girl with pink hairband writing

Arrows creating a circle with a learning objective code in the centre.

Diagram showing curriculum in the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment cycle with a learning objective code in the centre.

Diagram showing curriculum and pedagogy in the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment cycle with a learning objective code in the centre.

Diagram showing the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment cycle with a learning objective code in the centre.

Curriculum – taken from Primary Humanities Curriculum Framework

456PCpf.01 Use maps to describe how the landscape varies across their continent.

Pedagogy – An activity from the Stages 456 Enquiry 'How do landscapes change?'

Show learners a relief map of your continent. You can use the relief map from 'maps for free' website and use + and - buttons to zoom in on your continent. Explain that the colour key (on the right of the online map) indicates the height of the land above and the depth of the water below sea level. The height and the shape of the land is sometimes called 'relief'. With learners, identify and name key features on your continent (mountains, plains, rivers, etc.). On the online relief map, you can also use the Volcanos and Locations menus to zoom in on a particular area or feature (click on the menu, then on the required feature).

Explain that learners are going to work, in groups or pairs, to make a 3D map out of salt dough or modelling clay to show the shape of the land, called relief, on their continent.

Decide with learners how to simplify the categories of height on their model maps. In simple maps, usually, brown shades are used for the mountains, yellow for higher land and green for lower land.

Give out the resources detailed in the 'Salt dough map resources' in the 'Teachers resources'. Explain these steps and display them as a reminder to the learners.

Using your template, trace the outline of your continent onto the cardboard.
Place the clay or dough on top of your traced map.
Referring to your relief map, mould the clay or dough to show the height and shape of the land in 3D.
Leave the map in a safe place to dry for 24 to 48 hours.
When the clay or dough has hardened, paint the model using the agreed colour key.
After painting, use a black felt tip pen to label your map with place names. Add major rivers in blue and name them.

Assessment

Suggested success criteria:

I can describe where three different climate zones are found on a world map using named lines of latitude for reference.
I can use an atlas map to describe how landscape varies across my continent.

Curriculum Framework

The Cambridge Primary Humanities Curriculum Framework is available to download on the Humanities (0065) page of the Cambridge Primary support site. It provides a comprehensive set of learning objectives that give a structure for teaching and learning and can be used to assess learners' attainment and skills development.

For flexibility, the learning objectives have been organised into two groups of stages: Stages 1 to 3 and Stages 4 to 6.

Learning objectives in the Cambridge Primary Humanities curriculum are organised into three strands:

The People strand relates to humanities and social science subjects such as psychology, sociology and economics, Past to history and Places to geography. Each strand is further divided into ‘sub-strands’. Sub-strands help to identify progression and are useful when designing long-term plans, medium-term plans and other teaching resources.

We have designed the learning objectives to ensure progression in learning from Stage 1 to Stage 6 and onwards into Cambridge Lower Secondary. We provide exemplifications for most of the learning objectives, which you will find in the Learning objective exemplifications. This can be downloaded from the Humanities (0065) page of the Cambridge Primary support site.

**Find information from the lesson plan**

**Find information from the lesson plan**

In the Learning objective exemplification tables, identify the group of stages that you will be teaching and choose the learning objectives that you plan to use in an enquiry. Use the exemplifications to determine the breadth and depth of each learning objective and any prior knowledge that might be required.

Below are examples taken from the Learning objective exemplifications tables:

girl wearing blue looking and pointing at a globe

Pedagogy

For a deep understanding of the Cambridge Humanities curriculum, we recommend you use our Enquiry Approach.

Enquiry Approach

The approach emphasises the acquisition of knowledge and systematic development of discipline-specific skills, allowing learners to actively engage with a Humanities topic. This enables learners to build a comprehensive understanding of the world, while developing the necessary skills to critically engage with their learning and peers. The Enquiry Approach helps you plan engaging, rigorous and challenging medium-term plans for your learners.

Central to our Enquiry Approach is the enquiry question. To answer the enquiry question, learners conduct an enquiry that requires them to research, analyse and present information, while reflecting on their learning journey and developing their Humanities knowledge and skills.

Each enquiry comprises a number of lessons that focus on the question, and may relate to one, two or all three strands in the Humanities curriculum: People, Past and Places.

Step 1: Get curious
Step 2: Explore
Step 3: Share
Step 4: What's next?
Reflect - integrated throughout the Enquiry Approach

You can download the Cambridge Humanities Primary and Lower Secondary Enquiry Approach Guide from the Cambridge Primary support site.

Example enquiries

There are example enquiries on the support site that include all the learning objectives. These are designed to give you the flexibility to teach them without adaptation, adapt some elements to suit your learners and context, or use the structure and activities as the basis for planning your own enquiry.

You can use the Learning objectives by enquiry spreadsheet on the support site to check which learning objectives are included in each of the example enquiries.

**Integrating learning**

Integrating learning

To further your understanding, follow these instructions:

Select a learning objective from the Learning objective exemplification table that you would like to teach.
Use the Learning objectives by enquiry spreadsheet to identify enquiries that contain your selected learning objectives. Choose one enquiry that you would like to explore.
Identify and download your chosen enquiry.
Read through the enquiry and consider the following questions:

Is this enquiry suitable for your learners and context or do you need to adapt it?

Do you need to select or find alternative content and/or resources that are suitable for your learners and/or context?

Success criteria

In the example enquiries, we indicate where there are opportunities for you to monitor your learners’ progress.

Below are examples of success criteria taken from one of our example enquiries.

In the example enquiry you downloaded earlier, identify opportunities to monitor your learners’ progress and find the suggested success criteria in a table located in the beginning of the enquiry under the learning objectives.

Decide whether you need to edit the success criteria to suit your context or achievement of your learners.

girl and boy talking at a classroom desk

Assessment Guidance

Assessment guidance provides support and advice on how to assess learners in the classroom, including:

examples of how teaching and learning activities can be assessed
approaches to recording achievement
different approaches to reporting results.

There is no Cambridge Primary Progression Test or Checkpoint for this subject.

Find the Assessment guidance on the Humanities (0065) page of the Cambridge Lower Secondary support site.

You can find more general information about Assessment guidance on the About Cambridge Primary page of the Cambridge Primary support site.