Humanities
The Humanities Curriculum Area is a Federation of Geography, History and Religious Education.All students study the three subjects in Years 7, 8 & 9. For Key Stage 4 they can choose to continue to follow Geography and History or opt for alternative GCSE choices. However, they must continue to follow an R.E. course for Year 10 & 11 regardless of whether they choose to enter an examination at the end.
CURRICULUM AREA PHILOSOPHY.
To consider the links between human beings and the societies in which they live, from those geographical, historical and religious perspectives. AIMS
To ensure that all pupils receive their entitlement to an humanities experience.
Humanities’ wider contribution to the curriculum
Literacy
- Humanities provides a rich and varied literature for all the aspects of language development.
- Humanities contributes to the development of literacy through:
- speaking and listening, especially in role play and drama;
- stories, videos and music;
- reading - books, CD-ROM, World-wide Web;
- and writing
- Fieldwork in particular provides a meaningful context for language development.
- Humanities provides purpose and real world contexts for the use, application and understanding of number, e.g. measurement, work on scale, data analysis, and the interpretation and presentation of statistical evidence.
ICT affords many opportunities to enhance teaching and learning and raise standards in school Humanities, and Humanities has considerable potential for contributing to the development and application of the skills from all strands of the IT National Curriculum. Students should have an entitlement to using ICT in their Humanities.
ICT can:
- enhance the development of enquiry skills through the use of data handling techniques in the collection, recording, analysis and presentation of data and information (young people can use geographical information systems to manipulate, analyse and present the spatially related information which is the essence of Humanities),
- enable geographers to access a huge range of information from different sources and to experience alternative images of people, place and environment by communicating and exchanging information locally and world-wide, using CD-ROMS, e-mail, the Internet, video conferencing and other technologies, and
- reinforce understanding of physical, human and environmental spatial processes, using simulations and other models.
- Humanities offers a context for the development of all three of these key skills: for example, fieldwork encourages teamwork; individual study promotes action planning and self review; and decision making exercises, which require problem solving skills are an established approach to geographical education at all levels.
- In Humanities, young people learn how to take part in decision making processes, e.g. the planning process in a town or an environmental problem.
- Humanities develops an intelligent understanding of European and global links, fostering a sense of the interdependence of people and places.
- Through Humanities, young people develop a knowledge and understanding of the concept of sustainable development, and the skills to act upon their understanding as part of, for example, Local Agenda 21 initiatives.
- In Humanities, children learn how to investigate issues and in so doing reflect upon their own place in the world.
- Most geographical issues have moral dimensions E.G. overseas development and aid issues, resource exploitation.
- Through Humanities children experience different physical and human environments and have the opportunity to reflect and respond to them emotionally.
- In Humanities, children study real communities in a diverse range of cultures.
- Humanities contributes largely to children’s understanding of their place in the community (family, school, local and global community).
- Humanities encourages the development of social responsibility through the investigation of issues.
- Humanities explores the relationships between health and other aspects of human activity.
- Environmental health and personal health are inextricably linked.
- Humanities prepares students for the world of work, both by teaching transferable skills and as a significant component in vocational courses such as Leisure or Tourism.
- Humanities teaches students about different types of employment and their distribution within and among countries.
- Humanities studies the impact of economic activity on the human and physical environment.
- Humanities fosters key concepts of sustainable development education, e.g. interdependence, through the study of the relationships between people, places and the environment; and diversity, through the study of economic inequalities.
- Humanities explores attitudes and values towards complex issues such as resource exploitation.
Humanities in the school curriculum provides an essential foundation of knowledge, understanding and skills for life long learning, and equips those students who wish to become specialist geographers with the skills and understanding they will need. Above all, Humanities is relevant, stimulating and interesting for all students of all ages.
THE ORGANISATION OF TEACHING AND LEARNING
The timetable is organised on a Fortnightly Basis
YEARS 7, 8 & 9
- Year 7 and 9 have a time allocation of two hours per fortnight; this takes the form of one period per week. Year 8 has 3 hours per fortnight.
- In Year 7, the groups are taught as mixed ability until the end of the Christmas Term, at which time the pupils are placed into broad groups.
- In Years 8 and 9 the classes are taught in broad groups. (See Assessment Policy for review of groups)
- All subjects in the Curriculum Area have a time allocation five hours per fortnight for the GCSE Option groups, delivered in two or three periods of one per week. The statutory requirement of Religious Education has a time allocation of one delivered in one period per week.
- In Years 10 and 11 the classes are taught in mixed ability groups for both GCSE and non-exam subjects.
- Non exam R.E. groups are determined by other subjects.