Humanities

History, Geography and Cultural Studies, collectively known as the Humanities, often follow a thematic approach to learning in the Primary School, which enables exciting, creative and engaging teaching, whilst ensuring the progressive rigorous development and acquisition of knowledge and skills. In the Primary School, we want our children to have enquiring minds and become lifelong learners with a thirst for knowledge about their place in time and space.

Hooks are used to draw children into themes, sparking their curiosity and piquing their interest. The themes are then developed including highlights such as theme days, fieldwork and local excursions, guest speakers and exit points which draw the learning to a meaningful conclusion, for instance, through an exhibition of work with guests invited to experience their children’s learning first hand.

A cross-curricular approach makes best use of time whilst helping students make links in their learning and transfer their understanding across different subject areas. An example of a thematic approach in practice would be when Year 5 children studied Saudi Arabia. Not only did they develop historical and geographical skills, but they also learnt to write non-chronological reports in English and developed an understanding of Islamic art during art lessons by creating clay tiles.

Cultural Studies

We understand how important it is for all our children in the Primary School to understand about - and gain appreciation of - where they live, in support of our BISR commitment to students’ intercultural understanding. Our children in the Primary School learn, through Cultural Studies, about the history, geography, economy, government, citizenship and culture of Saudi Arabia, within the context of the wider Middle East. Our thematic approach to the Humanities enables cross-curricular links as well as opportunities for our students to reflect on their own unique culture and heritage.

Our students learn about their place in time and space, starting very much with the immediate locality for our youngest children. Early on, our Primary School students start to gain an impressive body of knowledge about Saudi Arabia, such as flags and symbols, national dress, traditions and customs, and food and drink. They become familiar with traditional stories and legends to help them understand the cultural landscape in which they live. As they become older, our students become familiar with maps of the region, key cities in the Kingdom, climate patterns and geographical features. By the end of Year 6, our students are learning more complex and sophisticated ideas about the history and geography of this fascinating nation, as they learn about a broad range of areas such as leadership, transport, agriculture and industry in KSA.

Our special themed days, such as Saudi Arabia National Day and International Day, enable our children to have first-hand experience of many aspects of Cultural Studies, such as tasting local and Middle Eastern cuisine. Our children enjoy numerous excursions and trips, from geographical investigations in the local compounds to visits further afield, such as the National Museum. And, what better way to connect with the fascinating geography and stunning beauty of the region than our Thumamah camps, involving our children visiting and exploring this incredible area of the desert landscape every year?

History

In the Primary School, we seek to cultivate the knowledge and qualities of an enquiring and curious young historian and archaeologist, with a hands-on, cross-curricular approach to learning.

We aim to develop our young children’s knowledge and understanding of people, events, and contexts from a range of historical periods and of historical concepts and processes. We teach the students the ability to think critically about history and communicate ideas very confidently in styles appropriate to a range of audiences. As the children in Primary School get older, they are expected to consistently support, evaluate and challenge their own and others’ views using detailed, appropriate and accurate historical evidence derived from a range of sources. They learn how to think, reflect, debate, discuss and evaluate the past, formulating and refining questions and lines of enquiry. We seek to nurture a passion for history and an enthusiastic engagement in learning, which develops our children’s sense of curiosity about the past and their understanding of how and why people interpret the past in different ways. Our young, budding historians learn a respect for historical evidence and the ability to make robust and critical use of it to support their explanations and judgments. As resilient and risk taking learners, we inculcate in our young children a desire to embrace challenging activities, including opportunities to undertake high-quality research across a range of history topics.

Geography

Our young geographers in the Primary School develop their knowledge, skills and understanding of the world around them through meaningful, investigative learning, often drawing on the rich local environment around Riyadh. We aim to develop a passion in our children with a real sense of curiosity to find out about the world and the people who live there.

We aim for our budding geographers to gain robust knowledge of where places are and what they are like. We strengthen links between learning so they gain an excellent understanding of the ways in which places are interdependent and interconnected and how much human and physical environments are interrelated. We know that ‘what’ you know in geography underpins those higher order skills so we seek to develop an extensive base of geographical knowledge and vocabulary. This foundation enables our children to gain fluency in complex, geographical enquiry and the ability to apply questioning skills and use effective analytical and presentational techniques. Our children are taught to be rigorous and thorough in how they approach geography and we teach them the ability to reach clear conclusions and develop a reasoned argument to explain findings. This requires significant levels of originality, imagination or creativity as shown in interpretations and representations of the subject matter. The children love to engage in fieldwork in our locality and develop their broader geographical skills and techniques. As the children mature, in preparation for the Senior School, our children start developing the ability to express well-balanced opinions, rooted in very good knowledge and understanding about current and contemporary issues in society and the environment.