What is our curriculum and intention?

We aim to engender a love of learning, self-belief and aspiration through several intentions that are unpacked further. Those intentions are removing barriers to learning; developing knowledge and skills for learning in a range of subjects; developing personal attributes and to enrich students’ experiences and broaden their horizons.

Health and Social Care promotes opportunities for students to draw from case studies and opportunities to undertake research to compliment learning and create skills that will be used throughout their lives. These skills encourage students to think outside typical teenage ego-centrism and begin to challenge the way they perceive the world we live in. Furthermore, highlighting how human relationships, physical environments and socioeconomic status may influence how they develop. Through investigation of health and well-being and how our lifestyle choices effect how healthy we are, students access different resources and external agency advice and guidance that encourages them to talk about areas and raise awareness of signs and symptoms of: abuse, addiction, illness and mental health.

At the end of each academic year, we will review and reflect on how the curriculum is designed to ensure that students remember what they have been taught. This regular review cycle ensures that we have a curriculum pathway that promotes success for all learners and ensures that the Health and Social Care curriculum is appropriate and fully differentiated for all students.

What is our learning journey?

As you move into the Health and Social Care qualification, you begin with Component 1: Human Lifespan Development, where you explore physical, intellectual, emotional and social (PIES) development across the life stages, from infancy to later adulthood and consider how life events and circumstances can impact growth and development. In Component 2: Health and Social Care Services and Values, you examine different types of health and social care services, understand how they support individuals with varying needs and develop knowledge of the core care values needed when working in this sector. Then in Component 3: Health and Wellbeing, you assess how various factors influence a person’s health, interpret health data, create realistic health and wellbeing improvement plans and consider potential obstacles individuals may face when making changes. You will also prepare for external assessment through exam practice and mock exams. 

Health and Social Care Learning Journey

Why this? Why now? Why have we sequenced our curriculum this way?

Our curriculum provides an opportunity for practical application alongside conceptual study. There are also strong opportunities for post-16 progression.

Health and Social Care promotes opportunities for students to draw from case studies and opportunities to undertake research to compliment learning and create skills that will be used throughout their lives. These skills encourage students to think outside typical teenage ego-centrism and begin to challenge the way they perceive the world we live in. Furthermore, highlighting how human relationships, physical environments and socioeconomic status may influence how they develop. Through investigation of health and well-being and how our lifestyle choices effect how healthy we are, students access different resources and external agency advice and guidance that encourages them to talk about areas and raise awareness of signs and symptoms of abuse, addiction, illness and mental health.

Through our curriculum provision we intend to develop:

• The key skills that prove your aptitude in health and social care such as interpreting data to assess an individual’s health;
• Processing that underpins effective ways of working in health and social care, such as designing a plan to improve an individual’s health and wellbeing;
• Attitudes that are considered most important in health and social care, including the care values that are vitally important in the sector, and the opportunity to practise applying them;
• Knowledge that underpins effective use of skills, process and attitudes in the sector such as human growth and development, health and social care services, and factors affecting people’s health and wellbeing;
• Core knowledge and understanding of human growth and development, how people deal with major life events, health and social care services;
• Skills such as: practical demonstration of care values, together with the ability to reflect on own performance;
• Reflective practice through the development of skills and techniques that allow learners to respond to feedback and identify areas for improvement using relevant presentation techniques. 

What will you typically see in our lessons?

Do Now activities at the start of lesson focus on recall of prior learning, checking for understanding and linking prior learning to new content about to be taught. Students are aware of where this lesson/ topic sits in the unit of work/exam specification and where future learning will take them with links to previous lessons and skills made clear to all.

New content is taught in an engaging and interesting way with a focus on detail, depth, key terms and words. Key concepts, such as human growth and development and how people deal with major life events, health and social care services are woven throughout units of work.

Checking for understanding includes using cold calling, questioning, class discussion, low stakes quizzes, written work, practice questions and application of new knowledge to big picture work. These checks of learning and understanding will identify gaps and misconceptions which will be addressed on the spot in lessons via re- teach, and in planned re- teaches in subsequent lessons. Students are guided to make links between topics and units.

Live modelling and guided practice using I Do/ We Do/ You Do approach, using visualisers and/or whiteboards. Model answers are used to identify good practice and shared areas for development before pupils complete their responses independently. The scaffolding of answers, sentence stems and essay structures support our students to make progress.

Explicit teaching of Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary, glossaries and definitions of key terms, etymology of words and how to use them accurately in sentences and paragraphs compliment the holistic view we take of teaching and learning.

How do we assess progress in our subject?

The three components in the qualification give students the opportunity to develop broad knowledge and understanding of health and social care at Levels 1 and 2.

Internal assessment Components 1 and 2 are assessed through internal assessment. Internal assessment for these components has been designed to allow the application of the conceptual underpinning for the sector through realistic tasks and activities. This style of assessment promotes deep learning through ensuring the connection between knowledge and practice.

The components focus on:

• the development of core knowledge and understanding of human growth and development, how people deal with major life events, health and social care services

• the development and application of skills such as: practical demonstration of care values, together with the ability to reflect on own performance

• reflective practice through the development of skills and techniques that allow students to respond to feedback and identify areas for improvement using relevant presentation techniques.

There is one external assessment, Component 3. It provides the main synoptic assessment for the qualification. Component 3 builds directly on Components 1 and 2 and enables learning to be brought together and related to a real-life situation. Component 3: Health and Wellbeing requires students to apply performance skills and techniques in response to a brief and stimulus. The external assessment takes the form of an external assessment taken under supervised conditions, which is then marked and a grade awarded by the exam board. Students are allowed to resit the external assessment once during their study period. The external assessment comprises 40 per cent of the total grade.

How do we extend and enrich our curriculum?

Where appropriate, we will use outside speakers and out of classroom opportunities to enrich the experience and understanding of our students.

How does our subject relate to further education and careers?

About 3 million people work in health and social care. Health care roles include doctors, pharmacists, nurses, midwives and healthcare assistants, while social care roles include care assistants, occupational therapists, counsellors and administrators. Together, they account for nearly one in ten of all paid jobs in the UK. Demand for both health and social care is likely to rise, so they will continue to play a key role in UK society and the demand for people to carry out these vital roles will increase.