Humanities

Mission

Nurturing students into self-directed and passionate learners, critical thinkers, caring and cultured citizens.

Key Programme

All Express and Normal Academic students are introduced to a common Geography and History syllabus at the lower secondary levels. The assessment modes for these two subjects are summative and formative in nature. The latter includes Geographical Investigation and Historical Investigation. The lower secondary Normal Technical students are introduced to Social Studies, a non-examinable subject, and the formative assessment mode is in the form of a Performance Task. One common strand for these three subjects is the outdoor experiential learning which takes place around various venues in Singapore.

It is compulsory for all Upper Secondary students to take Social Studies, a subject that centres on issues within/about Singapore and beyond. This subject is tested at the national level, together with Geography Elective or History Elective as a single (Combined) Humanities. In addition, from Secondary 3 onwards, students have the option of doing a second Humanities subjects such as Full Geography, Full History and Full Literature. Similar to the Lower Secondary practice, Sec 3 students are assessed in both Formative and Summative modes. The latter includes Issue Investigation for Social Studies, Geographical Investigation for Geography, and Alternative Assessment for History. For Sec 4/5 students, there are only summative assessment components which help to prepare them for the national examinations. For the Secondary 3 and 4 Normal Technical students, Social Studies are modular, non-examinable and conducted in Second Semester 2 and First Semester respectively. Performance Tasks are the mode of assessment. Similar to Lower Secondary, all students go through experiential learning journeys.

The department incorporates ICT tools at each level and stream to engage our students and deepen their understanding of the humanities subjects. In addition, our Humanities students participated actively and won accolades in the annual niche Humanities competitions such as the National Stamp Competition, the NUS Geography Challenge and the NLB Historical Scene Investigation Challenge Competition. The department also nominates around 10 passionate and academically inclined students for the exclusive annual Humanities Scholarship Tea Session with MOE.