Humanities

The Faculty of Humanities comprises three subject areas, Geography, History and Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPL). It is housed in its own teaching block with considerable audio-visual/ICT resources. All rooms are equipped with interactive white boards and visualisers.

The Faculty has an excellent record of success in examination performance at GCSE and A Levels and plays a significant part in whole school extra-curricular activities, e.g. Holocaust Memorial Day and The Imperial War Museum: Duxford.

All students take Geography, History and Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPL) at Key Stage 3 and are taught in mixed ability groups. Our teaching aims to be engaging and enquiry led. History in Key Stage 3 follows a chronological approach covering topics both in depth and in breadth for example The Norman Conquest and ‘Why was Slavery abolished?’ Geography has a varied Key Stage 3 curriculum that includes map skills, physical geography units such as: rivers, weather, coasts, plate tectonics and rainforests, the countries of China, Russia and the Middle East, and human geography: the local area, globalisation, settlement, developmental and environmental issues. Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPL) in Key Stage 3 covers ethical systems including the six world religions and a study of Humanism. All beliefs and approaches to life are examined critically and open-mindedly.

The Religion, Philosophy and Ethics (RPL) full course in Key Stage 4 is taught as an option subject over three years with two exams to be taken in Year 11. One exam concerns the religious beliefs and practices of Christianity and Buddhism and the other concerns how these beliefs are applied to ethical situations for example war and euthanasia. The student’s own opinion is equally as important for the examination. Current Year 10 will take the examination at the end of Year 10.

In Key Stages 4 and 5 both Geography and History are popular choices and are now parts of the English Baccalaureate curriculum within HRS.