Humanities


The Humanities Curriculum Area aims to educate students about themselves and about others, and to learn what it means to be a human being and a member of society. 


We aim to achieve this by:

  • enabling our students to develop a critical and reflective understanding of the world in which we live;
  • furthering a sense of time, place and purpose through the development of reasoned ideas and beliefs;
  • encouraging students to feel empathy for people in other parts of the world, of other cultures and religions, during other times, and in situations other than those which they have personally experienced.

We are a successful curriculum area where many students continue with their studies into the Sixth Form and beyond.  We offer a varied selection of courses in Key Stages 4 and 5.

 

Key Stage 3

Students are taught geography, history and religious studies as discrete subjects in all three year groups, all of which follow the various aspects of the National Curriculum.  We lay the foundations in Key Stage 3 for the optional curriculum at Key Stage 4.

 

Key Stage 4

Students have the opportunity to study one or more of the humanities subjects to GCSE level: Business Studies, Geography, History or Religious Studies.   Business Studies is also offered at BTEC level 2, offering a different method of learning and examination, which enables us to tailor the curriculum to the needs of our students.

 

Key Stage 5

As well as offering A Levels in the three traditional humanities subjects, we open up the Sixth Form offer to include A Level Sociology, Psychology and Business Studies.  In addition to this we offer BTEC Level 3 courses in Business and Travel & Tourism.  All of these are popular and many students choose to continue their studies at university level.


In the Humanities Curriculum Area we believe in continuing the experience outside of the classroom.  We therefore organise a variety of educational visits across the three Key Stages both at home and abroad.  The following is a selection of the places that we have visited:
Cadbury World, the Black Country Museum, Hengistbury Head, Parliament Buildings, Reading Synagogue, London Dungeons, the Ideal Home Exhibition, Thorpe Park and visits to Europe which have included Rome, Berlin, France, Ypres, Auschwitz and Iceland.

 

Updated October 2011