From the Junior School right through to Sixth Form, a Buckswood education is a journey of discovery. Beginning with a broad curriculum and specialising as students move through the GCSE and Sixth Form years, Buckswood is about creating a thirst for knowledge and a deeper understanding of the world around you so our Humanities department is a rich, vibrant collection of subjects to explore…

ICT and ECDL

You will find Juniors in ICT lessons getting up to a variety of fun and exciting projects to help them navigate the world around them. From stop-gap animation, using Office products and creating funky PowerPoint shows, ICT at Buckswood is designed to turn our students from mere end users to innovators. Our Juniors are also heavily supported to stay safe on-line and be conscious of the digital footprint they are leaving as a lifelong legacy.

Moving up to the Senior school, students follow the ECDL programme. The European Computer Driving Licence is equivalent to a GCSE grade B and gives all our students accreditation for their competency in general computer skills.

Success at ECDL opens the pathway for students to sit a further qualification in Computer Science.

History

Our department offers many trips so that our students can get to grips with the past and gain some real hands-on experience.  As well as venturing off campus we also welcome many workshops  to the school where our students can try on armour, hold a gun and fire cannons on the front field!

Recent visits have included:

Chartwell House & garden (Winston Churchill’s home and museum), the Houses of Parliament, the battlefields, trenches and cemeteries at Ypres, Chatham Dockyard, Rochester castle and cathedral, the Science Museum and Imperial War Museum. We also have visiting speakers and displays of costume.

Forms 1-3 study mainly British History, with a little international History. In Form 1, students study the period c.1066-1500; in Form 2, pupils study c.1500-1750, and in the Form 3, they study c.1750-1945.

The GCSE course, first studied in September 2016, is examined by Edexcel. Topics studied are: Medicine through Time, c.1250-present, Early Elizabethan England, c.1558-1588, The American West, c.1835-1895 and Weimar and Nazi Germany, c. 1918-1939. This varied course was chosen because the topics are very interesting and exciting.

At A-level, the Edexcel GCSE course was first studied in September 2015. Units 1 and 2 are: Democracies in change: Britain and the USA in the 20th century. Unit 3 is Poverty, the state and public health, c. 1780-1939. Unit 4 is a coursework based on a historical controversy, and students can choose their own topic, or can research the question :”How popular were the Nazis in the period 1933-39?”

Government & Politics

We use the Edexcel syllabus. At AS level, currently students study the topics of Democracy, Political parties, Elections and Pressure groups, the Constitution, Parliament, The Prime Minister & Cabinet, and the Judiciary. At A2, they study British Political Issues (up-to-date issues in domestic politics) and EU and EU issues.

We work in three classrooms and use as much visual material as possible: eg., current affairs programmes, films and musical items and the news.

R.E. (Religious Education)

Where could possibly be a better place to study the people of the world than Buckswood? Our students are learning about different people with classmates from over 48 different nations. Imagine classroom discussions on what it’s like to go on the Hajj as a 14 year old when sitting next to you is a friend who has been there and done that. Buckswood is about appreciating our differences and not to be scared of people who lives follow different patterns. Learning with their international classmates soon demonstrates that ‘different’ does not mean wrong, just different, and you will find the Buckswood student is more open to the world and what it has to offer.

Every facet of human life is studied in RE from birth to death and everything in between!