“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.”
Dr. Seuss, from The Lorax
Why study Health and Social Care?
The Health and Social Care curriculum aims to provide a varied, interesting and topical course to allow students to learn about the principles that underpin effective care within a diverse community facing a variety of challenging life circumstances and experiences. Through exploring areas that influence how we develop throughout life stages, students can in turn learn how we can live successful and healthy lives now and in our future. Through investigation of health and wellbeing and how our lifestyle choices affect 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.
The course is designed to develop technical knowledge and gives students the opportunity to apply it in case studies, conduct independent research and design support plans and therapies to support a range of people. All students will learn the core values of care and learn how to develop and use a range of creative activities to support individuals in health, social care and even early years’ settings. The Health and Social Care curriculum is designed to develop skills in effective communication, independence, leadership, research skills, critical analysis and creative problem solving.
This is a great stepping stone for anyone looking towards a future career in delivering any type of care for other people as the curriculum is designed to provide a broad view of Health and Social care in support of further study at college.
Health and Social Care Key Stage 4 Option (Years 10-11)
Health and Social Care is an optional subject at KS4. Students will receive a L1/L2 depending on exam and coursework outcomes. Coursework is assessed by the classroom teacher and moderated by the exam board (OCR.)
In Year 10, students complete two non-examined units. R033 is a mandatory unit which focuses on supporting individuals through life events. This includes:
- Learning about the different life stages of development
- Exploring the impact of various life events (both positive and negative)
- Identifying sources of support
- Interviewing someone about life events
- Creating a support plan for an individual
The other non-examined (coursework) based unit will be selected based on pupil preferences and strengths. The options are either R034 Creative and Therapeutic Activities or R035 Health promotion Campaigns.
R034 Creative and Therapeutic Activities includes:
- Therapies and their benefits
- Creative Activities and their benefits
- Planning a creative activity for individuals or groups within a health or social care setting
- Delivering a creative activity
R035 Health Promotion Campaigns includes:
- Current public health issues and their impacts on society
- Factors influencing health
- Planning and creating a health campaign
- Delivering a health campaign
In Year 11 students will begin preparing for the examined unit (R032: Principles of care in health and social care settings). This introduces service user’s rights, and involves the teaching of equality and respecting diversity. This will include learning about:
- The rights of service users in health and social care settings
- Person-centred values and how to apply them
- Effective communication communication skills and how these can be adapted in a number of different settings in order to meet individual needs
- Protecting service users and providers within a health and social care setting
Further information about the Cambridge National Health and Social Care specification can be found using the following link:
Cambridge Nationals – Health and Social Care Level 1/2 – J835 – OCR
Homework expectations
Homework will be related to the current area of study. Typically students are asked to complete one weekly piece of homework which may be written or topic based. Homework will also include independent research which must be completed in support of coursework within lesson.
