Social Studies

Overall expectations in Social Studies

The Social Studies curriculum has been designed in recognition that learning is a developmental process and that the phases a learner passes through are not always linear or age-related.

For this reason the content is presented in a continuum for each of the five strands of Social Studies - Human Systems and Economic Activities, Continuity and Change through Time, Social Organisation and Culture, Resources and the Environment, & Human and Natural Environments.

The content of the continuum has been organised into four phases of development with each phase building upon and complementing the previous phase. The continuum makes explicit general understandings about Social Studies for each strand in relation to broad concepts and ideas.

The Social Studies Skills Continuum (second document below) shares information on how skills related to Social Studies may be developed over time, in relation to the phases of growth through which a learner progresses. The skills are listed on the left (in bold) with examples of how the skill may be demonstrated in learning along the phase-based continuum.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

The Social Studies Curriculum serves as a guide for teaching conceptually. A child's learning in Social Studies, where appropriate, is shared in relation to our Units of Inquiry in recognition of our commitment to a transdisciplinary approach to learning and teaching.

Further information about the timings of learning in relation to these understandings about Social Studies within Units of Inquiry can be found in weekly communications between school and home.