Stanford Junior and Infant School
Living together - Learning together
Geographical skills are taught progressively from the Foundation to Year 6. Geography is concerned with the study of places, the human and physical processes which shape them and the people who live in them. It explores the relationship between Earth and its people.
At Stanford School, children study their local area and contrasting localities in the UK and other parts of the world. They are encouraged to enquire and question, learning through experience as they explore their own environment, beginning at school and expanding further afield as they get older. We value fieldwork as an integral part of the curriculum.
A concern for the environment is fostered through outdoor learning, as well as whole school events such as Walk to School Week. The implications of human action on habitats, both animal and human, are considered through many of our topics and cross-curricular links are made with other subjects such as Science, Maths and Literacy.
The Sunflowers have been learning about Christopher Columbus and how he navigated his ships using a compass. Today they navigated their way around the playground using their own compasses.
A parents guide to the new National Curriculum (not Foundation/Seedlngs class). More information can be found on the Rising Stars website
Can I learn about directions: North, South, East and West?
Can I research features of a location and present them in a persuasive leaflet?
Can I practise my map reading skills?
Can I explain the water cycle?
Can I use 8 point compass directions to give and follow instructions?
Can I describe the structure of a volcano and find some of the major volcanoes on a world map?
Year 6 completed some fabulous cross-curricular work recently, where they were able to display their new-found knowledge about a part of South America. We focussed on Brazil and the children used sources to research many different aspects of human and physical geography of the area. They then applied their knowledge of persuasive and informative writing to present their findings in a meaningful and interesting way.
As Pumpkin class enjoy learning foreign languages we arranged for a video call to Beijing so the children could learn about China and its language Mandarin. Approx 1 billion people in the world speak Mandarin making it the most spoken language in the world.
The children were able to speak to a teacher called Jining Wang who lives in China’s capital city. Jening showed us what her home looked like and showed us pictures of China’s famous places – the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China. She then taught the children how to say ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ in Mandarin.
The children were really quick to grasp the language and the teacher was very impressed with them. She tried to catch the children out with a game of Simon Says but the children were too clever to be caught out!
This was a fantastic opportunity for the children, some of whom have never had video calls before, and they really enjoyed it. They were talking about it all day they were so excited.
见 (zài jiàn): See you again!
Sunflower Class have been learning about directional language and how to read a map. Oliver H- I enjoyed finding all of the crayons using my map. Mollie- I liked learning how to read a map. Jamie- We've learnt about compass directions. Isla- I liked going outside to use the maps. Joshua- We found things using maps to help us.
As we have been learning about how the rocks are formed we thought we would look at water. The water we have now is the same as when the Earth began and before life was created. It moves in a continuous cycle call The Water Cycle.
We watched a video to show this amazing process.
We then tried to make it rain in the classroom.
We got a sealable bag, water and food colouring. First we labelled the bag with the different processes: evaporation; condensation and precipitation, then we added the food colouring and the water.
We then attached them to the classroom window. As the classroom warmed up the water levels dropped as the water had evaporated. When the classroom cooled, or the warm air touched the side of the bag neat the cool window the water vapour condensed to form drops of water which ran down the side of the bag back into the pool of water at the bottom of the bag. It was really interesting to watch.
As part of our Vikings vs Anglo-Saxons learning, we were very lucky to have a special visit from Miss Ryley from Access Cambridge Archaeology. We spent the morning finding out about the role of an archaeologist, looked at specialist tools and took part in a variety of exciting and interactive activities.
We had a fantastic morning! Thank you Miss Ryley!
"It was amazing to be able to touch the artefacts and the animal skulls, I’ve never done anything like that before" - Alfie
Last year we learnt about how directions can be given using compass directions. This year we have learnt to increase the accuracy of our directions by using 8 compass points.
We went outside and drew a large compass on the playground. Then we played games where we had to run to different parts of the playground following the compass directions given. After that we went inside and used this knowledge to find our way around a map of a town finding places of interest and giving directions of our own.
As part of our theme- learning about our local heritage, we visited the Fishing Heritage Centre in Grimsby.
Throughout the day we toured the museum, selecting which job we wanted to undertake on the fishing boat, learnt about the history of fishing and the fishing industry and even experienced what it would be like to work on the fishing boat. Did you know from the age of 14 you could work on the fishing boat?
We were also very lucky to be able to tour the very famous Ross Tiger Boat. It was amazing to see the ship and how it worked in the fishing industry. Our tour guides were men who had worked on the Ross Tiger so we were able to ask them lots of questions throughout the day!
We will be following our visit up by writing a recount of our brilliant class trip!
After reading about the beginning of the word and the erupting volcanoes we decided to look at the structure of the world, the structure of volcanoes and why volcanoes erupt.
We discovered that volcanoes are named after the Roman God Vulcan who people believed lived in a volcano. He was the God of fire and the Romans believed that volcanoes erupted when he was angry.
We then looked at the structure of the Earth and the many layers which make our planet. These hot layers of molten rock and magma cause pressure within the Earth which escape through gaps in the crust of the Earth. As the lava cools on the surface of the Earth it turns into rock again. With each new eruption the volcano grows with a new layer of rock.
The children then used atlases to find the sites of the 10 most explosive volcanoes in the world. They had lots of fun finding new countries, some of which they had never heard of before.
Today the children became travel agents. They used their knowledge of Egypt to highlight on a map places of interest then they planned a route for the tourists to follow so they could see all the exciting things Egypt has to offer. After this some children made posters to advertise their tours and travel guides that the tourists could take with them giving them helpful information about the weather, what to pack and what they could see on their travels.
As we are learning about volcanoes in our reading book ‘The Pebble in my Pocket’ and in our science theme of ‘Rocks and soils’ we thought we would have a ‘volcanic’ experience. In the morning we made a model of a volcano using newspaper and paper mache. We also looked at some ‘eruption’ simulations by mixing different household items together. The children were fascinated by how everyday objects could cause such a reaction!
In Star Anise we have been learning about rivers - focusing on how they are formed, why they are important, how materials are transported, deposited and eroded, the causes and effects of pollution and we will also be choosing a river to create a case study about. This cross curricular project is also enhancing our online research and multimedia skills. We are selecting key pieces of information, pictures and even producing videos, then presenting using Microsoft PowerPoint. Although we have only just begun this project, we already have some fabulous information and are really enjoying creating our engaging, attractive and informative presentations!
