Humanities

Whitley Secondary School Humanities Department teachers are committed to helping our students succeed in and broaden the horizons of their learning. Our History, Social Studies, Geography and Principles of Accounts teachers care for our students’ well-being and strive to make their learning enjoyable, meaningful and authentic by promoting experiential learning and relating their learning to contemporary world issues and events. Through our Humanities curriculum, we aim to inculcate strong citizenship values and develop students’ critical and analytical thinking skills. Furthermore, student collaboration and peer learning is strongly valued, and promoted through group projects and relevant pedagogical approaches such as the Structured Inquiry Cycle & Deliberation process.

For 2021, all Whitley Secondary 1-3 students have their own personal learning device. To tap on this effectively, our Department adopted and promoted the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools to supplement our Home-Based Learning lessons and to make learning more engaging in the classroom. Through the use of the Student Learning Space (SLS), Google Classroom, YouTube videos, Zoom meetings, Microsoft Teams and many other novel ICT tools, the department’s teachers helped to ensure the continuous teaching, learning and engagement of students in the Humanities in spite of the Covid-19 pandemic. This exposure to using ICT tools is subsequently brought into the classroom, where our Humanities students are guided to employ these to collaborate with one another. This enhances their self-directed learning alongside developing expertise in using technology.

The department also believes that learning is made fun through hands-on experience. We seek to develop and stretch our students via experiential learning journeys, fieldwork projects, conferences and competitions. However due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to adapt many of our usual outdoor experiential learning opportunities to various online platforms. Nevertheless, our students still got the valued chance to explore Kent Ridge and the National Museum. While some of our annual Humanities Talent Development programmes such as competitions and conferences, were temporarily postponed due to safety concerns our students were exposed to a wide range of online platforms and games such as IntelliCount for their Principles of Accounts. Through this wide range of engaging methods and activities, our students continue effectively on their goal of developing critical thinking through a well-rounded and authentic education in the Humanities.

S2 History students participated in the Knowgets Makerspace Workshop. Collaborating with students from other schools to create bite-sized knowledge nuggets about the Heritage of Singapore.

S1 Humanities students exploring Sungei Buloh wetlands as part of their Geography Learning Journey.

WSS History students learning and having fun at the History Card Game Challenge held at Bendemeer Secondary School.