Humanities Colleges will foster an understanding of:
human values and attitudes, both past and present
how society is organised and develops.
They will use their specialist status to raise the standards of achievement and quality of teaching and learning in the humanities for all their learners.
Humanities-based subject departments will contribute to whole school improvement by developing innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Humanities Colleges will develop and share good practice across the curriculum, particularly between the specialist subjects.
They will raise the post-16 participation rate in the specialist subject areas, and provide young people with the skills needed to progress into employment, further training and higher education according to their individual abilities, aptitudes and ambitions.
Humanities Colleges will be active partners in a learning society and share resources and good practice with their local schools and communities. Learners will make active contributions to wider society and will work in partnership with the wider community, including business and industry, to enhance opportunities for lifelong learning.
All Humanities Colleges will foster an understanding of human society through the subjects they have chosen from within the humanities-based specialism. They will:
Develop innovative strategies for teaching and learning in humanities-based subjects.
Spread good practice, beyond the classroom, using modern and traditional technologies, and experiences.
Ensure learners are skilled in the techniques and concepts germane to the specialist subjects and can apply them to other contexts.
Encourage learners to participate actively in society and celebrate cultural diversity from across the world, especially the cultures of learners and the local community.
Forge partnerships with the humanities-based industries to deepen learners’ understanding of human society culture and ethics.
Humanities Colleges which include English as one of their target -setting subjects will:
Give priority to the development of learners' literacy, adapted to meet their individual needs.
Make dynamic links between English and other curriculum subjects to reinforce learners' knowledge, skills and understanding.
Give a high status to books as well as the creative use of word-based technologies (e.g. digital video, radio, film).
Extend learning opportunities through the use of local writers, libraries, drama groups and theatres, newspapers, radio stations, advertising and public relations companies.
Humanities Colleges which include geography or history as target setting subjects will:
Develop organisational, enquiry and communication skills through geography, history and other subjects in the curriculum. This will enable learners to develop informed and contextual judgements, views and hypotheses based on skilful evaluation of evidence.
Enable learners to apply their experiences to the wider local, national and global contexts and to develop an understanding of how people exist, act and think and have done in the past - including through reading and using texts and other source material both critically and empathetically.
Extend learning opportunities through the use of field work, the built environment, local museums, archives, archaeological sites, historical buildings/sites.
Explore and establish innovative applications of ICT and media technologies to learning in history.
Schools choosing geography as the lead subject will develop an ethos which fosters a keen interest in global, regional and local issues and in how people and environments are interdependent.
Schools choosing history would develop an ethos which helps young people make sense of the world in which they live and to appreciate the implications of long-term changes in the way we live and differences between value systems.
Humanities Colleges will set targets in three humanities-based specialist subjects. Applicants must choose a minimum of one key subject from history, geography or English.
They will choose two other subjects from the following:
religious education
citizenship
classics (taken to mean classical civilization, Latin or Greek)
drama
English, history or geography (if not already chosen as the key subject).
At Key Stage 4 and post-16, where English is a target-setting subject this means English language and English literature.
