Curriculum Umbrellas and Historical Maps | Billingborough Primary School

Historically we had created Curriculum "Maps" for each term; however, as our work on our revised curriculum progressed we felt that there was a better way to exemplify how our learning was structured. So "Umbrellas" were born!

One of the most important purposes of our "Umbrellas" are that they show how the national curriculum for each class is being delivered.

We have mixed age classes and some year groups are split.

There are three classes in the upper and lower school respectively; therefore, with four years to spend in each (Nursery to Y2 and Y3 to Y6) every child will spend two years in one class. However, which class varies from pupil to pupil.

Therefore the class curriculum is very important. They have been very carefully structured so that there are no statutory content omissions but there are smartly planned duplications.

For example: Barn Owl class (half the Y5's and all the Y6's) study The Ancient Greeks every year but the curriculum concept changes - from "Warfare" in Cycle A, to a culture and social structure in Cycle B. This is how the use of concepts aids the acquisition of knowledge in a coherent way.

Each term class learning, devised as a project under an "Umbrella", following the knowledge concepts prompted by the national curriculum, is planned by teachers.

Tenuous links are avoided, if there is not a natural fit, subjects are taught alone.

Science is taught in individual year groups as it is a spiral curriculum and needs to be delivered in sequence.

As shown in the Anne Frank example on our Curriculum Intent page the "Umbrella" project creates a, or more knowledge conduit(s) via which curriculum coherence can be achieved.

The Umbrellas are also sent home and published on the website (see below)

A key finding in recent curriculum research has been the lack of understanding some primary children have about individual subjects, e.g. history or geography; perceiving them all as “topic”. We are addressing this through our Umbrella; trying to encourage the children to see an overarching theme in their learning , an “Umbrella” , under which different subjects, as a project, are taught. Other stand alone subjects sit at the bottom of the page.