Humanities

Head of Department
Mr Lau Wan-Chiat Jeffrey

Senior Teacher (History)
Mr Henry Kwek

Teachers
Mdm Rosnayati
Ms Sylvia Ho
Mrs Caroline Rajakumar
Mr Tan Yi Hang
Mr Li Zhi Cong
Mr Liow Jie Sheng

Department’s Vision
Developing Learners with a curious and caring mind.

Department’s Mission
To nurture students to be critical thinkers who can contribute to society.

Social Studies

The Social Studies Curriculum aims to develop students to be informed, concerned and participative citizens, competent in decision-making, who will contribute responsibly to the society and the world they live in.

• Learning Journey to Jalan Besar Trail (exploring diversity in SG)

• Learning Journey to Westlite Dormitory (exploring issue of having migrant workers in SG)

• Infusion of ICT-based platforms such as Edmodo and Student Learning Spaces (SLS) to develop self-directed learning

• Model United Nations (UN) participation since 2015

Geography

Under the supervision of teachers, Geography lessons encourage first-hand experiences outside the classroom. As a more student-centered inquiry-based activity, the students first form their guiding questions and hypotheses on geographical issues they learn in class. During the fieldwork and post-fieldwork stages, teachers facilitate deep learning where students play a more active role in making sense of knowledge. The following are some examples of geographical issues that the students investigated this year:

Secondary 1: Is the quality of water at Mac Ritchie Reservoir good?
Secondary 2: Do Marsiling residents feel a sense of belonging to their neighbourhood?
Secondary 3: Do different places in the school have varied temperatures?
Secondary 4: Is Marina Bay an attractive tourist destination?

The Geographical Investigation (GI) at Marina Bay area required the students to interact with members of the public as well as to observe the environments in order to test their hypotheses.

The GIs have harnessed the joy in the learning of the subject as students were engaged in their tasks were encouraged to question what they observed in the process.

At the Mac Ritchie Reservoir, the GI provided the students with an avenue to better understand the environment around us by bridging the gaps between theoretical ideas learnt in class with real-life experiences.

A product of the students' Geographical investigation

History

History allows students to draw connections between the past and present by understanding how the nature and impact of past developments explain today’s world.

Lower Secondary History
The Lower Secondary History syllabuses seek to imbue in our students a sense of national identity by helping them understand the Singapore they live in today. This will require students to first understand the relevance of Singapore’s past in shaping Singapore’s unique position. It also aims to set the study of Singapore’s history within the context of developments from the 14th century to the 1970s.

These new syllabuses will also help history students to understand not just content concepts such as archaeology, history, colonial rule, migration, sense of belonging, independence and sovereignty, but also historical concepts such as chronology, evidence, diversity, historical significance, and change and continuity.

Secondary One
Teachers have designed a Department designed a learning journey for the Secondary 1 History students to the Singapore River. This was to provide the students with opportunities for experiential learning. The objectives of the project were to:

• enhance students’ understanding of the area around the Singapore River in the context of history (colonial period) viz a viz the present day;

• develop students’ understanding about the historical concept of “Change and Continuity”;

• trigger students’ curious mind to exercise critical thinking skills.

Brief description of the Event:
In this Historical Investigation (HI), the students were divided into groups and were tasked to research on how transformation of Singapore as a British port  followed by the influx of immigrants to Singapore have impacted the area around the Singapore river in the aspects of jobs, infrastructure, entertainment, people and the Singapore river itself. Subsequently, students embarked on this learning journey to experience the current makeover of the area around the Singapore River in order to identify the changes and continues from the past. The deliverable for this project was to create a poster to display the changes and continuities in the area around the Singapore River.

Secondary Two
The History and English department curricula place great emphasis on crafting authentic learning experiences to enrich learning for students. With this in mind, the two departments collaborated and designed a meaningful learning journey for the Secondary 2 cohort to the Former Ford Factory museum. The objective of the Learning Journey was to provide opportunities for the students to skillfully apply the knowledge gathered from the museum to evaluate historical ambiguities and design a brochure.

Brief description of the Event:
The exhibits and artefacts at the museum provided interesting insights about life during the Japanese Occupation. Students were able to visualise the sufferings of people and ponder deeply about moral issues of war and control which fortunately, are not experienced by the younger generations in Singapore. The accompanying reflective worksheets deepen their understanding of how the Japanese Occupation developed resilience in people and the importance of maintaining the peace we have fought so hard to achieve.

Upper Secondary History
The use of History Inquiry provides the students a way of thinking about the past. The use of historical inquiry shows students a way to inquire into, organise and explain events that have happened. Historical inquiry is the process of “doing history”. It is a cyclical process (shown below) that begins with the asking of guiding historical questions. This is followed by locating and analysing historical sources to establish historical evidence. The historical evidence is then used to construct historical interpretations that seek to answer the guiding historical questions.

Cycle of Historical Inquiry

The use of historical inquiry is thus at the heart of history instruction and learning, and students must be provided with the opportunities to learn the skills required through practice and engagement in historical inquiry.

Secondary Three Mini-Projects
The students were tasked to do 2 mini-projects a year. The mini-project is part of Sec Three Alternative Assessment. By engaging in this mini-project, the students will have a better understanding of what they have learnt in their history lessons.

By engaging in this mini-project, the teachers want students to:

1. activate your critical thinking skills

2. demonstrate empathy and perspective-taking

3. showcase your artistic talents

4. build up your confidence and presentation skills

Mini-project 1 (Political Cartoon)
Students to create a political cartoon based on what they have learned in Term One which were the impact of World War One on many European countries as well as the reasons for and weaknesses of the League of Nations.

Student’s perceptions of the Impact of the Treaty of Versailles on Germany

Mini Project 2 (Letter-Writing)
The students were tasked to do letter writing based on the inter-war years (between WWI and WWII). By engaging in this project, they will have an opportunity to demonstrate their historical narrative writing skills, including infusion of contextual knowledge and empathy, artistic talents as well as dramatic oratorical skills.