Humanities

Inner quadrant and centre: These represent the connections which students will make through their learning of Humanities to make sense of the world we are living in. By acquiring sense-making skills, it will enable the students to continue to learn throughout their lives.

Key Teaching and Learning Pedagogies and Strategies

The Humanities Program

Lower Secondary

In Geography, the students are not only poised to acquire a wide range of knowledge and skills to understand and explain physical and human phenomena that occur in different places and cultures. It also focuses on Singapore’s contemporary environmental and social issues.  The subject also imbibes in students an awareness of appropriate attitudes and values that promotes a positive geographical future; one that ensures the sustainability of our resources, people, country, and planet. 

For History, the students are exposed to Singapore’s formative years which allow them to view Singapore’s development and progress as a nation and its nation building efforts. This will help students to be more appreciative of what has been and understand the causal relationship between events and consequences. This will help them to reflect on how their own history has been shaped by the society around them and how they can make their own history as a global citizen.

To develop a passion in the humanities as well as to provide joy in learning, the Humanities curriculum provides students with the opportunities to make sense of their learning by making connections. For example, Learning Journeys is a key feature of the Sec 1 and 2 programme.

Upper Secondary 

Humanities is a compulsory subject for all students at the upper secondary level.  It comprises the subject Social Studies, with either Geography Elective or History Elective for both the Express and Normal Academic Students. Normal Technical students are exposed to the Social Studies citizenship module which is non-examinable.   

The learning of Social Studies uses an inquiry-based learning approach which is seen as being key to transforming the teaching of the Humanities from a largely content-transmission approach to an approach that gets students to take ownership of their learning by purposefully seeking information and constructing their own knowledge within the norms and standards set by the disciplinary nature of the subjects. Many of the skills and concepts learnt will be issues related to authentic problems encountered in the world today. This is supported with the use of dynamic content (out of Textbook examples such as current affairs) to help students apply concepts learnt meaningfully and allow themselves to figure out constructive solutions in preparation to being contributing citizens in the world. We also hope that our students can possess critical thinking skills which will allow them to become discerning voices of conscience as a citizen. 

The learning of Geography or History as an elective is meant to deepen the students’ passion in their chosen area of study after the exposure to both subjects at the Lower Secondary level. Geography will enable students to understand the physical and human interactions that occur in our environment and enable students to contextualize natural phenomena and human development while developing their consciousness of the world around them and how they can affect it more positively. History will allow students to visit the past occurrences and get to know personalities who shaped key events in the early 20th century and enable students to contextualize present government systems and political decisions while developing their consciousness of human behavior and reactions to present-day decision making and view world issues with a more balanced perspective and empathy.