Humanities

Chantry Primary Academy values a rich and imaginative humanities curriculum. We explore the world and the cultures around us through our book based curriculum. Our curriculum enables us to teach the core skills and the knowledge and understanding within Geography, History and RE through both focused and cross curricular activities involving play, investigations and child led questioning.

History

 Chantry Primary Academy allows the children a vast variety of learning experiences within history. These learning experiences take many forms as we understand that for children to succeed in subjects such as history, they have to be engaged and engrossed in the topic. This is done through our book based curriculum which allows the children to link what they read in their class text to the learning they do in class. The class texts chosen allow the children to advance their understanding of the development of Britain and the wider world.  We understand the importance of children having a firm understanding of chronology (times and dates) as well as the ability to explore and enhance their enquiry skills.

Our Great Fire of London
Recreation

All history based teaching at Chantry is supported by making links to other subjects within the national curriculum including Geography, ICT and English. This allows the children to apply the learning they do within history lessons and create diary entries, letters and historically accurate stories. The learning of history is often enhanced with a WOW day or Fantastic Finish which dedicates quality time to bringing history alive for the children, including trips to Hampton Court and Hendon Air Museum. History is also bought to life in the classroom with visits from guests such as a World War Two evacuee or a recreation of the Great Fire of London.

Geography

The world around us is always changing and at Chantry, this means our learning and teaching within geography is also always adapting. From the moment children enter the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) at Chantry, they are introduced to geography through reading and play based learning. This is achieved through the focus on a key text. This approach to teaching is used throughout Key Stage One (KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2). 

Key Stage 1 overview:

• Develop an understanding of location including the continents oceans, alongside learning key facts about the United Kingdom.
• Investigate and learn about the physical and human features of their own locality and environment.
• Focus on geographical questions like- what is it like? How did it get like this? How and why is it changing?
• Begin to develop and use geographical enquiry skills, including field work and first-hand observations, geographical terms, using maps and photographs.

Key Stage 2 overview:

• Study places and themes at different scales from local to national in the United Kingdom and overseas.
• Study how and why physical and human features are arranged as they are how people are influenced by and affect environments.
• Develop and use geographical enquiry skills including field work and IT skills, making and using maps and using photographs.

Year 6 Trip to France

Geography at Chantry aims to balance the teaching of key geographical skills (drawing maps, orienteering and completing field studies) and developing knowledge and understanding of the world. This is done by comparing and contrasting different locations, investigating change using key vocabulary and asking/ responding to key questions. 

We understand the need for children to explore and investigate the world around them and this starts with our school and our local environment.  It continues across the school to include trips to various different locations ranging from London, Norfolk and even Paris. 

Giving children the opportunity to explore different locations through first-hand experience is important to us at Chantry and where possible we aim to do this through WOW days and Fantastic Finishes. However we also understand the importance of giving children the opportunity to investigate through other sources such as atlases, photographs and ICT.  As such, these skills are threaded into our teaching throughout our fun and exciting curriculum.

RE

Luton Peace Walk

The Luton and Bedfordshire Agreed Syllabus for Religious Education gives a clear outline of what should be covered within the teaching of Religious Education and all our children at Chantry Academy learn about religions within and beyond their local community.  

At Chantry, we work with our local community to help deepen our learning about different cultures and religions. Our children and parents are welcomed to share the practices and stories from their faiths and where possible this supports our learning from our book based curriculum.  

Starting from the Early Years, the children visit local places of worship to help deepen their understanding about the beliefs of others. Our teaching of RE also links in well with many of our values including tolerance, faith and harmony.

Faith Leaders Assembly

For many of our pupils, faith/ religion is an important part of their lives and forms part of their identity.  It is our aim as a school to enrich our pupils’ curriculum by learning from each other as well as from teachers and experts alike.  This helps us as a community value and respect those with different ideals to our own and as school we feel this is an important life skill.

Personal Wellbeing

Within our school, we aim to ensure that children develop personally, emotionally and socially. One of our school priorities is to use the idea that 'every child matters' at the centre of what we do. We aim to ensure that every child has access to the knowledge and skills that will enable them to remain safe and healthy, to contribute positively in any aspect of school life and the wider community, to enjoy and achieve, both in and out of school and we aim to equip children with the ability and desire to achieve economic well-being.

Our school is committed to building strong links with the wider community, and to providing a better service to the community that we serve. The subject of Personal Wellbeing provides an ideal vehicle to enable these links to be made. This can be achieved through various initiatives in school such as family learning, school mentoring, school council, community gardening projects and inter-school projects to name a few. We regularly invite people into our school and we maintain strong links with other community groups such as the elderly and the local high school.

Integral to the day to day life of Chantry, is that it is a values based school. Core values, including the British Values, are promoted through all aspects of school life; values which are essential to developing self-respect and regard for others and for making a positive contribution to society are discussed and explored with children in lessons, in assemblies and in everyday interactions. Values such as: respect; integrity; determination; hope; and empathy form part of our programme. We encourage parents to 'talk the language' of values and to promote these at home, so that we all play a part in helping children to 'live the values'.

Anti-Bullying

One of our anti-bullying workshops

Here at Chantry we also make the children aware of the importance of anti-bullying. This is delivered through interactive theatre productions and various activities for the children to take part in at school. Children are also encouraged to reflect on their health and well-being and we are very proud of our Health and Well-being award.