The Humanities department consists of five specialist teachers who are passionate about their subjects and excited to keep developing their subject knowledge and pedagogy.

The Birkdale Geography curriculum helps students to have an interest in, and sense of wonder about, places across the globe. We aim to equip students with the skills and knowledge to make sense of a complex and dynamically changing world, and to be able to critically question the world around them. We want students to be able to explain where places are, how places and landscapes are formed, how people and their environments interact, and how a diverse range of economies, societies and environments are inter-connected. We will give students opportunities to build on their own experiences and to investigate places at all levels, from the personal to the global, and to realise it is possible to travel and explore for themselves.

Our students will develop their geographical enquiry skills by questioning, investigating and critical thinking about issues affecting the world and people’s lives, now and in the future. We want students to learn to think spatially and use maps, visual images and new technologies, including geographical information systems [GIS], to obtain, present and analyse information. Our students will become global citizens by understanding how historical events have shaped modern day geography, and by exploring their own place in the world; their values and their responsibilities to other people, to the environment and to the sustainability of the planet.

The Birkdale History curriculum helps explain the world as it is, by exploring the world as it was. We aim to create a sense of intrigue and encourage students to be ambitious.

We base our studies around British history, but our enquiries will be local, continental and global in scale. We aim to emphasise that the past is a ‘foreign land’ – constructed in ways which are still contested.

Students will develop their disciplinary thinking, exploring the past from multiple perspectives and viewpoints. We strive to make our curriculum representative of a variety of perspectives and viewpoints. We are aiming to provide the broadest picture, while picking up on those details that fascinate, challenge and delight. Combining these threads, we want to provide a rich, broad and structured understanding of the past for every student. Our curriculum aims to produce ‘citizen historians’ by helping change how students understand themselves, the world around them, and their place within the world. Significantly increasing students’ historical knowledge, curiosity, critical thinking and communication skills are all key functions of our curriculum. Increased knowledge of the past will help form students’ identities; this curriculum will give them the confidence to defend their beliefs, and flexibility to incorporate new perspectives into their thinking. The Birkdale History curriculum will help students question and influence the people and communities around them.

Our history curriculum exists within the wider Birkdale curriculum to challenge the students and give them power. We want it to help all our students engage in the discourse and practices of educated people, so that they are enabled to enjoy and actively become citizens of the world.