Politics
The teaching of Politics and Government has been part of the Sixth Form curriculum at Queen Elizabeth's for over 30 years.
Aims
- to encourage a basic appreciation of the political environment in which students live and the evolving nature of their society.
- to make students aware of their responsibilities and rights in their community and society in general.
Teaching approach
A variety of methods will be adopted (the Department is not prescriptive as regards how courses should be taught: what appears to work successfully with one group might not bring the same response from another). Set sizes can vary but Sixth Form sets rarely have more than 10-11 students.
The following methods may be included in part in any of the taught courses.
Conventional classroom teaching - The use of data response
- Debate/discussion/role play
- Audio and video stimulus
- Directed note taking from texts or articles
- Guest speakers
- Outside visits/ day conferences
- Computer-based data collection
- Information gathering and developing analytical skills.
Departmental Resources
The department is based in Singleton House, the school's purpose-built Sixth Form Centre and has:
- a small reference library within the department
- access to ICT facilities, a TV, DVD, video and the Internet (a valuable source for research and teaching).
Students can also use the main school Library's social sciences section.
Courses offered
Students undertaking the AS course in the Lower Sixth study two units: People and Politics, and Governing the UK.
The A2 course in the Upper Sixth covers a further two units: Current UK Political Issues, the European Union Political Issues.
The examination board followed is Edexcel.
