Health and Social Care

Course Overview

Click on the subject for the relevant year group in the table below to find out more information about each course.

Three million people work in Health and Social Care in Britain today, and the number of workers required is constantly growing. At key stage 4, some pupils have already decided that this is the vocational sector for them. For these pupils, the study of Health and Social Care provides an opportunity to develop the sector-specific knowledge and technical skills that they need to progress. For others, it will provide an insight into the values, empathy and compassion needed to succeed in 21st century Britain.

Ambition for our pupils

The overarching aim of this subject is to develop knowledge and skills that would be useful to any care worker: to appreciate the impact of major life events such as bereavement, marriage and parenthood; to understand the strategies used to cope with them and to employ the values, empathy and compassion needed to succeed in the Health and Social Care sector. At the same time, the course strives towards making pupils independent learners, capable of research and analytical thinking. Finally, through an awareness of the academic and vocational pathways within the sector, pupils will be able to more fully explore whether this is the vocation for them.

The structure of our curriculum

Health and Social Care can be studied as a BTEC option at key stage 4. The key themes that are revisited and reinforced across the two-year programme of study are:

1. Human development, holistic health and the factors that can affect this;
2. Care values and their application in practice;
3. Career opportunities in the care sector.