Health and Social Care

Health and Social Care curriculum overview.

Rationale

Citizens we are privileged to have access to the National Health Service and other supporting services that allow us ensure we live healthy lives. It is imperative pupils are aware of how the 7 Care Values are transferable skills that they will adhere to throughout their working lives and when working alongside others and within their families. Through reflective practice of their own actions and performance, we intend to instil values in pupils that will encourage them to be well-rounded individuals in society with the confidence to develop and realise their career aspirations and to create, thoughtful and caring individuals who will in turn, pass these values on in the future.

Intent

Health and Social Care equips our pupils to discover the impact of positive and negative human development and how to critically analyse how these factors affect our day-to-day lives. Health and Social Care enables pupils to explore academically and practically areas that influence how we develop throughout life stages and in turn raise expectations of how we can live successful and healthy lives now and in our future.

Health and Social Care promotes opportunities for pupils to draw from real life experiences, case studies and opportunities to undertake research to compliment learning and create skills that will be used throughout their lives. Through investigation of health and well-being and how our lifestyle choices effect how healthy we are, pupils access different resources and external agency advice and guidance that encourages them to talk about areas and raise awareness.

The curriculum gives the opportunities for group discussions to be engaging, promoting time for powerful knowledge and cultural capital to be explored and teenage mind-sets to be broadened.

Implementation

The curriculum within Health and Social Care is based is assessed in two different ways. Component 1 and 2 are assessed through internal assessment, this means pupils receive assignment briefs that are engaging and are linked to local care homes in Darlington and the real world. The third assessment is an external assessment which is a set task marked by Pearsons. Pupils have two hours to complete this task and it allows them to bring together what they have learnt in all three units.

Component 1 – Human Lifespans Development

Component 2 – Health and Social Care Services and Values

Component 3 – Health and Wellbeing

The first unit requires pupils to learn areas of growth and development that contribute to the whole person, including physical, intellectual, emotional and social. Pupils will have the opportunity to reflect on physical, social and economic factors that are part of everyone’s life. In edition to this they will learn how people through their lives experience life events and how these can have a positive or negative impact on development. The six major life stages throughout human lifespan and then produce a report on an individual; develops over three life stages, of their choice. Component 2 allows pupils to study care professionals from various settings and how to look after service users. Pupils must learn the seven care values and how to adopt caring behaviours and practise through role-play at Darlington Manor Care home and working with pupils in the Academy with EHCP plans. Component 3 combined knowledge, understanding and skills in component 1 and 2 but they must be able to assess an individual’s health and wellbeing based on a case study and design a health and wellbeing plan improvement plan for that individual under exam conditions.

Impact

When pupils successfully gain this qualification they will have developed a practical understanding of the health and social care sector and pupils will have a better understanding of whether this is an area they want to continue to study. Health and Social Care will also help pupils to develop transferable skills and knowledge, such as self-evaluation and research skills, which will benefit them wherever they progress to next.