About the Department
The Humanities department is responsible for the teaching of both Geography and History. Students receive 4 lessons over a fortnight for each subject area. The department is led by Mrs Salih and Mrs Hogan. Mr Watson is lead for History and Ms Ives lead for Geography. We have several very experienced staff within our department coupled with some newer teachers to the profession who bring lots of new ideas and enthusiasm.
We are continually working to develop a rich and exciting curriculum which engages our pupils, reflects their experiences and helps to develop them as critical thinkers.
What will your child learn in year seven?
In History Students begin their learning with a unit on the history of Migration in Britain. This allows them to use some of their prior knowledge from primary school whilst also learning about different areas of history and developing new skills. For the remainder of year in History students study 1066 and the Battle of Hastings, Medieval Monarchs and Medieval life, as well as an in depth study on Henry VIII and a final unit on the Tudors and Stuarts.
In Geography we begin with a unit introducing students to key skills such as map and compass reading as well as looking at the Geography of the United Kingdom. For the remainder of the year in Geography students we continue to learn key geography skills as well as study in depth units on Antarctica, Africa and Rivers.
How can learning progress throughout the classroom?
History and Geography is all around us, all of the time. There are a multitude of activities outside of the classroom that we encourage students to take part in, such as visiting local war memorials and museums. We have an abundance of living history at our local country park and we undertaken a unit about the history of our local area. Geographers take part in a field trip to supplement their learning and the History department have previously held a trip to Germany, which we hope to be able to continue.
What ambassador opportunities are available to your child?
If a child is happy and enthused they will learn more effectively, as such we aim to make our lessons as interactive, exciting and engaging as possible. We use a range of materials, such as video clips, different sources of information and a variety of methods to share the knowledge students need to acquire. We also try to ensure activities allow for active learning, that includes pair and group work. Good literacy is the key to students accessing humanities subjects and as such we promote and support good spelling, punctuation and grammar. We also aim to help students read and learn about the world around us.
We have a small but growing ‘humanities library’ where students can borrow both fiction and no fiction books that are linked to the Humanities, we will also be reading books, both fiction and non fiction as well as news articles throughout the year as a class to not just expand our knowledge but also to develop a love of reading. Homework projects are set that allow students to research and present information in a variety of ways and allow students to play to their areas of interest, for example in year 7 we have homeworks that include making your own medieval board game, as well as the option of planning, building, drawing or making a video about castles.
