In Key Stage 3 (years 7-9) the humanities subjects are taught as individual subjects. The school operates a two-week timetable and students receive 3 hours of Geography and History during this period (equivalent to 1.5 hours per week) while Religious Studies is allocated a 1 hour lesson each week.
Year 7: In year 7, the emphasis is placed on enabling students to make a smooth transition into the school and so all humanities lessons are taught in mixed ability classes based on the form tutor groups.
Year 8: At the end of year 7 each student is placed in a humanities set based on ability, performance and effort in both Geography and History (see the page on "sets" for more detailed information). The timetable organisation in year 8, usually means that a group will receive 2 hours of Geography and 1 hour of History during week one and 2 hours of History and 1 hour Geography in week 2 (or vice versa). Religious Studies lessons usually continue to be based on the mixed ability groups from year 7 and are timetabled for 1 hour per week.
Year 9: The organisation of teaching groups and the timetable in Humanities is the same as in year 8 for most of the year. However, soon after the year 9 exams (early in the Spring term), most students will begin following the GCSE Humanities course in preparation for sitting the external examination in the summer term of year 10 (see the KS4 page for more details). Students will choose one of the GCSE Humanities modules and study this during both their Geography and History lessons for the remainder of the year. Students will complete a piece of coursework in their chosen module at the end of year 9.
For more detailed information on the syllabus of the individual subjects in Key Stage 3 please visit the subject pages which may be accessed using the subject navigator bar.
