The natural world is full of diversity! This strand is focused around the rich diversity that the natural world offers us and the capacity that nature has to regenerate itself. Here you will find resources linked to this strand and to links across the curriculum.
Resource: Greenside wanted to find out what soil is and why it is so important to all of us. They created a whole school science project that was taught to each year group over the year alongside the existing National Curriculum plants and living things unit. Each half term a different year group took over responsibility for the garden: testing the soil, planting/harvesting crops along with watering and weeding. By the end of the year, the garden had produced a bumper crop of nutritious and delicious veg.
Curriculum Link: Science
Resource: Bread is such an incredible and universal food. It has the power to nourish us, bring us together and connect us to the food system. Greenside decided to open a in-school mircro bakery which would teach the whole school how to bake bread, provide enough for school lunch and then provide bread for the wider community. For bread to remain at the heart of the school experience, it had to sit within the curriculum and become an integrated learning tool. CPD was provided by all staff so that the making of bread could become a stimulus to hook the learning onto. Opportunities for linking bread appear across the whole curriculum beyond D&T including: in history as a way of finding out how different civilisations used the land and made food, in geography when finding out about physical and human aspects of our world, with writing pieces in English, weighing & measuring in maths - the list is endless! Bread making linked in with the science curriculum as the school grew a patch of wheat so they could observe the journey of the loaf from planting the seeds, to harvesting the grain, to making the bread. This project also allowed the school to connect with the whole community through bread making lessons, foodbank donations and community bread sales each week where the bread is sold at a 'donate what you can afford' sale.
Curriculum Link: Science, D&T, Maths, English, History, Geography, English, RE, PHSE
Resource: During the Spring Term, Greenside had a whole school geography focus. All the planning was based around delivering the National Curriculum for geography but through the lens of food and farming. One week was dedicated to looking a food produced in the UK and they were fortunate to have a visit from Tom Carver of Westcombe Dairy. He brought up a sample of their herbal ley which which his cows eat, along with a selection of his cheeses. The children were able to have a go a making a simple, fresh cheese and then enjoyed a local, seasonal cheeseboard as part of their lunch.
Curriculum Link: Geography