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As a result of a curriculum review, this school with specialist sports college status has made humanities part of its core curriculum at key stage 4.

About the school

Park High School is a coeducational, 11-16 school with 1,169 students. It serves a mixture of residential and industrial areas on the northern side of Birkenhead. Designated a comprehensive school in an LEA that has selection, the school has a high proportion of lower-attaining students, but also some high attainers. Almost 60 per cent of students are eligible for free school meals and around 25 per cent of students have special educational needs without statements.

The humanities entitlement area

In 2003 the school made humanities a core subject at key stage 4 to add breadth and balance to the curriculum, introducing WJEC humanities GCSE in year 10. The course comprises three core units, a contemporary issues unit and a coursework unit on local issues. The aim was to create a course that would be accessible, yet challenging to all students. Under the previous options system more able students had been able to choose geography or history but not humanities.

Year 10 is divided into bands, which means that express groups can complete the course by the end of year 10. These students then have the opportunity to top up their units to complete a full GCSE in either history or geography. The curriculum allows flexibility to motivate and encourage students and challenge the more able. Social science GCSE is available as an additional option. This demonstrates the school’s commitment to offer at least two courses in the humanities entitlement area to meet the revised requirements.

The humanities GCSE is also a vehicle for citizenship at key stage 4 and incorporates non-examination religious education.

The geography core unit, ‘Patterns and places’, addresses three key questions:

• How does the physical environment influence the distribution and activities of people?
• Why do urban areas show distinctive patterns?
• What are the environmental impacts of urbanisation and human activity?

The history core unit, ‘The United States of America, 1960-1990’ addresses the questions:

• How did the USA attempt to halt the spread of communism?
• Why has it proved difficult to achieve racial equality in the USA?
• What were the main influences on people’s lives in the period 1960-1990?

The religious education unit, ‘Christianity and contemporary lifestyles’, addresses the questions:

• On what teaching are Christian beliefs based?
• How do Christians express their beliefs in daily life?
• How does Christian belief affect a Christian’s relationships with others?

This unit also supports the spiritual, moral, ethical, social, cultural and environmental dimensions of the humanities course. Elements of these dimensions are also in other sections of the course. For example, in the ‘Tourism, travel and leisure’ module (see below), changes in religious observance are considered when assessing changing patterns of leisure time since 1945.

The contemporary issues unit on ‘Tourism, travel and leisure’ supports the school’s specialist sports college status. The key questions within this unit are:

• How have developments in travel affected tourism?
• Can the use of the physical environment for leisure and tourism be sustained?
• What has been the impact of tourism, travel and leisure on society and culture?

The internal enquiry is based on the development of ICT and how it can be harmful to young people.

The coursework unit on local issues looks at the development of the park which lies outside the school grounds. It offers scope to integrate the humanities subjects by looking at the background and history of the park, plans to develop it for the twenty-first century and how a memorial to the victims of world conflict could be sensitively incorporated into the park’s design.

The course began in June 2003 with year 9 students, in order to create a smoother transition to key stage 4. It pulls together skills learned at key stage 3. In geography, students select and use a variety of skills and techniques appropriate to geographical studies and enquiry. In history they make use of historical sources ‘critically in their context, by comprehending, analysing, evaluating and interpreting them’. Religious education encourages students to evaluate and analyse responses to religion. The assessment objectives state that students will be required to ‘record, analyse, interpret and evaluate a range of appropriate evidence, such as audio-visual materials, internet sites, maps at a variety of scales, graphs, diagrams and statistical materials’.

The school is confident that this key stage 4 humanities course encourages innovation and partnership. One example stems from a recent year 9 visit to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. Students discovered that the Anne Frank Trust has a scheme to plant a network of trees across the country to commemorate the holocaust. Supported by a work-related learning grant, year 10 students will design memorials as part of their coursework and a suitable design can be turned into a garden in the school grounds by students as part of the humanities GCSE course and a work-related learning curriculum.

Evaluation

Students have not questioned the fact that humanities is compulsory; they see the course as a natural progression from key stage 3. Staff are reviewing how further work-related learning can be incorporated into the humanities course, reviewing the provision of citizenship and updating how it is mapped throughout the school. The majority of the citizenship requirements will be delivered within humanities and personal, social and health education. More work will be done to raise the number of students who take GCSE humanities in year 10.

This year the specification has changed so that one core unit is assessed at the end of year 10. The more modular approach will be beneficial for students taking the course over two years. In light of this change staff are considering restructuring the course to include an examined core unit and both coursework pieces in year 10.

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Page updated: 12 June 2008
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