Humanities

Comprising our Humanities curriculum are the subject areas of History, Geography and Religious Education (Philosophical Thinking: PT), as well as Sociology at KS4. Our Humanities curriculum is broad and balanced, underpinning the whole school ethos of providing pupils a rich educational experience.  We enhance the requirements of the National Curriculum for England by continually evaluating current schemes of learning to ensure we are stimulating national shifts and changes in cultures, to prepare students for everyday living. This in turn, allows us as a department to provide high quality lessons through a wide range of Historical, Geographical and Theologian themes to prepare them for the skills and knowledge they need to progress into future careers, thus developing academic excellent and aspiration.  

Our curriculum has been designed as a sequenced and spiralised curriculum which begins with Year 7 and 8 taught as a combined Humanities curriculum before separating out to individual disciplines. Throughout this delivery, all aspects of planning is designed through working together with subject leads within the department, ensures expertise in the planning and assistance in the delivery. At Abbey Park School, we feel it is important for student to understand how the subjects can intertwine and complement one another, thus developing schema. From Year 9 the subject disciplines become discrete, allowing specialist staff to fully engage students with their subject and preparing students towards their examinations. All students opt for either History or Geography in order to support the whole school vision where all pupils have the right to study English Baccalaureate. We are continually working in partnership with our transition teams to embed our curriculum and ease the transition between both primary and key stage 5.

High levels of literacy and numeracy are central in developing good outcomes for our pupils in all Humanities disciplines. Across the academic year, we have developed a wide range of reading opportunities through the whole school approach of topic texts and reading codes. At Key Stage 3, we have ensured that students are exposed to all genres of subject specific texts to, not only provide a wide range of opportunities and enhance the high levels of literacy developments, but through engaging with these in a multitude of ways, provide the succession required of our spiralised curriculum to ensure pupils are prepared for their next steps in their English Baccalaureate (either in Geography or History as a minimum) and most importantly raising cultural capital of our pupils. 

Extended written responses are a critical element across Humanities. As a department, we have adopted and embedding the modelling and structured talking and writing framing ‘I do, we do, you do’. This has seen a development and increase in the teaching of literacy, reading and writing, thus emphasising the high levels and development of literacy. In Geography in particular, we work with the mathematics department to assist with the development and provide pupils granular approach to developing their numeracy in order to access this requirement of the discipline. Mini whiteboards also enhance both our use of numeracy and literacy across all disciplines within Humanities.

In Humanities, we echo the whole school concept of ‘spirit of adventure’ through providing pupils stimulating lessons, immersing themselves into scenarios such as examining Nazi education, debating on saviour siblings, whether one life should save another, or decision making on protecting the Holderness Coastline. To demonstrate this, pupils are guided through their curricula with big-picture thinking of individual subjects learning journey’s, complemented with topic PLCs (personalised learning checklists). These outline all the content covered within each unit.

Enhancing the notion of spirit of adventure and curriculum exposure further, we offer a variety of trips, both entitlement and opportunity, that spans locally as well as further afield. This ranges from year 7 visiting the local site of Old Town (entitlement), to our annual trip in year 9 to the Battlefields (opportunity). We have regular retrieval practices throughout both KS3 and KS4, including practices such as ‘Geog your Memory’ ‘Past’ and ‘Pray’ which aid pupils to have regular granular opportunities to recap previous learning to assist in making links to their long-term memory, as well as providing links on the spiral next steps in knowledge. All pupils at Abbey Park School, when they choose their option process, have to choose either History or Geography to take forward at GCSE, and then Full Course Philosophical Thinking and Sociology is offered within the options process, both which have a positive uptake each year. All classes throughout Humanities are taught as mixed ability classes, where support is offered to pupils within lessons as necessary. We are proud to say examinations within Humanities have been positive and on an upward trend over the past 5 years.  

Humanities is a core driver to enlighten, diversify and develop pupil’s awareness of key concepts and issues. Here at Abbey Park, we are keen for pupils to have an enquiry approach, questioning the world we live in and having opportunities to investigate all viewpoints to ensure they are given a holistic approach. Our aim is to provide pupils with the transferable skills they need to progress to their next steps as well as ensuring they are equipped for their everyday life by adapting our teaching to cultural shifts, keeping SMSC and British Values and our own APS PROUD into consideration. We are keen for students to develop empathy throughout their work within all Humanities subjects, including, but not exclusive, being empathetic towards historical events such as WWI, as well as showing empathy and respect for our wider community through the examination of different religious denominations, including minority denominations. All Humanities staff are tutors, supporting the whole school ethos and well-being both pastorally as well as in the classroom. This support ranges from students who have Additional Needs through to those students who have a gift in a Humanities discipline. We provide enrichment opportunities, including a debate club, which is open to all, to allow pupils to discuss a wide range of topics.

All staff within the department are proactive with all elements of CPD comprising of teaching initiatives such a Rosenshein, as well as subject specific opportunities, ensuring they are developing key skills, knowledge, careers and cultural capital opportunities including fieldwork. For example, we have one member of staff who has conducted additional CPD specifically on the Holocaust which has enriched not only our Humanities curriculum offer, but also PSHCE, developing academic excellence both for pupils and staff.  This collective CPD, ensures that we are able to deliver current, high-quality lessons which are carefully planned within short, medium- and long-term planning of the curriculum, aspiring in developing tomorrow’s leaders and responsible citizens. Our learning journeys across Humanities are carefully considered to validate they are broad and balanced, promoting tolerance, cultural diversity as well as being sequenced and spiralised, evolving the skills and attributes needed in order for Abbey Park pupils to be successful. The school’s geographical situ leads us to be a forefront of the community which the Humanities department took as a key component when designing the curriculum. As a team, collectively, we have a strong desire to promote respect and tolerance to all our community to thrive as well as students having a strong understanding of their identity. In order to demonstrate this to pupils, we designed a specific unit on Swindon and the surrounding areas where we look at the development and changes of the area from prehistoric Avebury through Swindon’s key turning points and how the town is changing today.