Humanities

In geography our ambition is ALL students will have broad and rich Geographical knowledge of Portsmouth and their local area, the United Kingdom and a range of different countries worldwide. They will be able to assimilate information and use their gained cultural knowledge and experiences, to form and clearly articulate, balanced and well considered viewpoints around a range of global issues from climate change to food security. Students will acquire and confidently apply geographical skills (including mathematical, cartographic, investigative and problem solving skills) right from the beginning in year 7 and will have the opportunity to develop and refine these skills throughout Key Stage 3 and 4.

Our curriculum at Miltoncross goes far beyond what is taught in lessons. In key stage 3 pupils participate in fieldwork at Marwell Zoo, Hengistbury Head and the sustainability centre to apply the skills and knowledge from the classroom to the real world. KS4 geographers undertake urban and rural field trips to gain the confidence to undertake their own individual investigation entirely on a topic of their choice.

Our curriculum supports the improvement of reading by incorporating successful bestselling books into the curriculum. The year 8 Economy topic is based on the Almighty Dollar by David Dharshini where students follow the incredible journey of a single dollar. In the topic of development in Year 9 students read extracts, through guided reading, from Factfulness by Hans Rosling and explore misconceptions of the world and evaluate if the world is better than we really think.

Our Geography curriculum is structured through recurring themes to help students understand the threads that weave through the world around them while learning key knowledge and skills. This begins in Year 7 with oceans and ends in Year 9 with the same theme but exploring the global issues surrounding the world's oceans. Students only ever explore key themes after gaining their historical context, for example when studying population and migration in year 8, history has already taught the Industrial Revolution providing the foundation knowledge for why people move to cities. It enables them to see how their subjects all interrelate to create their world.

History, the study of the past, is all around us; we are continually making history through our thoughts,  words and actions. History is personal and global; it is everyday life and momentous occasions. History is about people.

Our ambition is that by the end of Key stage 3, ALL students will understand how our world works. Our aim is to ensure that students have a foundation of some of the key events and features of the past that can help their understanding of life in modern Britain and how society has evolved over time. Students develop an understanding of chronology, interpretation skills, source analysis and significance, alongside substantive concepts such as monarchy, power and religious change over time. They should walk away from their history lessons having grasped key social and literacy skills that they may need for life in the workplace i.e. being able to form a debate or argument, using evidence to support their hypothesis and  understanding chronology.  They will be readers ready to hear the views of other people throughout history such as views on slavery, anti-Semitism, civil and gender rights and political change from a range of personal viewpoints to scholarship. This will enable students to experience cultures and communities from across the world and time making them less insular in their thoughts. Our curriculum will tie closely to the school’s core values, creating independent and thoughtful students who can empathise with events in the world around them.

Our history curriculum is structured chronologically to help students understand the threads that weave through their historical understanding while learning key knowledge and skills.  This begins in Year 7 with migration to Britain from early settlement to the Norman Conquest  – ending in Year 9 with conflict in the 20th Century. Our schemes of work switch scales to provide a mixture of depth and breadth studies, from power of the monarchy to an in-depth look at the Inter-war years. This chronological approach helps to secure historical knowledge and enables students to apply their previous learning to different subjects across the school from supporting English with knowledge of the World Wars or the Russian Revolution or Religious Studies with context for the Holocaust.  It enables them to see how their subjects all interrelate to create their world.

In Ethics and Philosophy our ambition is for all students, by the end of Key Stage Three, to have learned about a wide range of beliefs and cultures from the Ancient World to Modern Britain and the rest of the World.   They will consider beliefs and values that are common to all people, those which relate only to those who hold religious beliefs and those beliefs which are specific to the six main World Religions. Non-religious beliefs are also studied and valued.  In taking this approach, students have the opportunity to develop both broad and very specific knowledge and understanding of the diverse peoples of our World.

They will learn how to identify similarities and differences between beliefs, also developing a strong sense of self and of others.  They will understand the impact of beliefs on individuals, and on local, national and global communities.  They will learn to construct supported, reasoned arguments and how to understand and value the views of others, whilst challenging them when necessary.

Our curriculum is structured to encourage students to reflect on core beliefs and experiences of what it means to be human, developing into studies of different belief systems with ancient pasts, right up to the present day.  By studying in this way, they will be able to develop a knowledge base starting from their own personal experience and growing into a much broader understanding of peoples’ different experiences over time and around the World. They will read about personal experiences, sources of wisdom and academic works written by a wide range of people over a long period of time.  Through this reading they will better understand the human experience.  They will also understand the value of working hard, being kind and avoiding excuses as they learn to take personal responsibility for their actions and recognise the significance of the actions of others.

Students choosing Ethics follow the popular EDUQAS course in Ethics and Religion. They study how ethical issues affect relationships, are reflected in the Human Rights agenda, lead to and resolve conflict and can be applied to the concepts of Good and Evil. Students also study Christianity and Judaism, developing their knowledge and understanding of religious beliefs, teachings and practices. An enquiry based approach is adopted and students seek to answer questions such as ‘If God is all knowing, all powerful and all kind, why is there suffering in the World?’ Their range of responses is always interesting.

Learning prepares students for GCSE examinations as well as learning for cultural enrichment and its own sake. Students are asked to demonstrate knowledge of basic concepts, describe real life situations, beliefs or features and to explain people’s actions or beliefs. They use reasoned ethical and religious arguments to explore issues such as the existence or otherwise of God; the moral issues involved in Euthanasia and attitudes towards same sex marriage. The subject material covered at GCSE is drawn from a rich range of issues affecting all types of people living in modern Britain and elsewhere.

Students who choose to study Travel and Tourism in KS4 have the opportunity to explore the world of business in the travel and tourism industry through a stimulating and engaging curriculum. This course gives our students the opportunity to develop some of the knowledge they have gained in their geography KS3 curriculum on regeneration, city development and tourism so that they can apply this foundation knowledge to the travel and tourism course in more depth. It also helps to develop their technical skills in a more practical learning environment.

Regeneration of Portsmouth over the last 10 years has brought significant physical development, enhanced tourism and a raft of new enterprises. Over the next ten years, thousands of new jobs are expected to be created in the city, concentrated in a number of key sectors, one being tourism. Students will follow the Edexcel specification as it gives them a detailed insight into accommodation, tourism development and promotion, transport and visitor attractions. As part of the course students will investigate the importance of the travel and tourism sector to the UK, and investigate different types of UK destinations. Students will develop their written communication skills through report drafting and project management and their reading skills through a variety of research tasks. They will gather information from event reports, internet searches, brochures and news articles in order to create both essays, executive summaries and promote wider reading on the travel and tourism sector.

Students who choose to study travel and tourism are provided with the foundation knowledge useful for careers in the tourism industry such as, travel agency, coordination and consultation, tourism management or guide and airline hospitality.

This course enables students to develop their cultural capital to help them become more successful in the future and give them an awareness of the world around them and how industry is ever changing. A variety of visits are on offer to students at both a national and international scale across the curriculum to help broaden their minds.

At Miltoncross, students have the opportunity to choose Psychology as an preference choice at KS4. Psychology follows the AQA specification and during the two years course, students will study the eight fundamental topics of Psychology, such as Memory, Perception, Development, Research Methods, Social Influence, Language, Thought and Communication, Brain and neuropsychology, Psychological problems.

Throughout their learning journey, students are guided and supported to expand their psychological knowledge (including key terminology, key concepts), to develop their critical analysis, and to understand and apply research skills, and to deepen their reading around the subject. Furthermore, students are led to research in depth about how psychological foundations were established, to understand the interrelationships between the core areas of psychology and to comprehend how the studies for topics relate to the associated theory. Formative assessments, extended writing tasks, retrieval practice activities are planned across the curriculum in order to develop students’ knowledge and understanding of psychological ideas and processes.

Psychology is a complex social science, where students have the opportunity to apply their knowledge by taking part in hands on experiments and designing their own experiments. For example, as part of our Neuropsychology topic, students participate in activities such as dissecting animal brains so that they can identify different areas or components of the brain and link it to the human brain. Students can broaden their own experiences when they are offered the chance to meet professionals working in the field as Police or Law representatives are invited to speak to them and they can continue to grow by co-curricular trips to the Science Museum in London or the Criminology Conference.

Psychology is a subject that could offer the students a broad spectrum of career opportunities. Often after studying Psychology at GCSE level, students are inspired to further their studies and take A-level or shorter term courses to study Criminology, Clinical Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Law, and Medical School, Public Services (e.g. Police Force).