Humanities

 

Introduction

The Humanities Faculty is made up of five discrete subjects –

In Key Stage 3, Geography and History are taught for 2 hours per week each whilst Religious Education is taught for 1 hour per week.  In Key Stage 4 all subjects are in the options programme and have 3 hours per week and in Post-16 each subject receives 4 hours per week.  We have a proven and lengthy record of success at all exam levels with pupil achievement consistently well ahead of City and National figures.  We have a good intake of pupils in our subjects but we also believe that our success is due to a very hardworking team and excellent relationships with pupils.

Although all the subjects are taught discretely, staff in the Faculty work closely together, and common and high expectations of pupils are clearly established including a standard marking scheme in key Stage 3.  Active and skills-based learning is the basis of the varied teaching strategies used within the separate subjects, with an emphasis upon enquiry-based and independent learning.

There are at present 13 staff working in the curriculum area providing considerable depth of expertise within the Faculty Team and this in turn allows for a wide measure of staff development and training.  Curriculum development is an on-going process and particularly at present there is considerable emphasis being placed in the delivery of the National Strategy and the extension of ICT uses within the classroom.

History

The History department is organised around a commitment to skills based learning with specialised units emplaced throughout the Key Stage 3 course, in order to prepare pupils for the Schools History Project (SHP) GCSE and Entry Level Award courses in Key Stage 4, and AS and A2 study in Key Stage 5.  The outline courses are as follows:

Year 7 – Roman Empire and Medieval Realms.
Year 8 – Aspects of Tudor and Stuart history, discrete skills based course and Imperial China.
Year 9 – Aspects of 19th Century History and 20th Century World.

Years 10 & 11 – GCSE and Entry Level (SHP) comprising of the History of Medicine and an in-depth study of Britain 1815 – 1851. Coursework (25%) is based on a study of Coalbrookdale and modern Chinese political history.

Years 12 &13 – The AS course consists of: Britain 1815 – 1841 and Russian history 1855 – 1924, including two 1 and ½ hour papers and two extended essays. At A2, students study Britain 1841 – 1885, French and Italian Revolutions in the 19th Century and the Scramble for Africa. The students are examined by three, 1 and ½ hour papers.

 

Psychology Department

Browse through our practice pages, coursework on AS and A2 can be accessed from the Psychology Homepage

Humanities Department Staff