At a time where we need people to help others, to be caring and support others, we at RFSS are in a brilliant position to help inspire, educate and create students who are ready to make an amazing contribution to their local and wider community.
Within health and social care students have opportunities to learn valuable skills to be successful within the health and social care sectors, to learn how to support themselves and others, and empower people to take care of themselves holistically.
Health and Social Care Department – Overarching Curriculum Intent (2024-2025)
To build an inclusive curriculum which is aspirational for all and empowers our students to make outstanding academic and personal progress.
Over the past decade there has been a huge shift in the research behind how we should be approaching health and social care, this has come from many reviews into the current approach as well as serious case reviews over the past decade that have identified a need to change the approach to more person-centered care. In order to not just treat a symptom of a person’s health but look at the root cause of it then support the person through a holistic and integrative approach. Combine this with the concerning staff shortages within Health and Social Care and a need for reforms to help support the widening increasing numbers of adults in social care you find the need to educate our young people on careers in this section as well as how to help prevent conditions from happening in the first place for themselves and others. Truly being preventative rather than reactive.
Our Health and Social Care curriculum aims to empower and educate our students in deeper understanding of how we grow and develop as humans and therefore how different factors can impact this, then how these can be influential on our long-term health and happiness. Students learn in detail different supportive measures from interventions, to how to create and establish care plans for individuals, and how to involve multi-disciplinary approaches to a person’s care. Underpinning all of this is their knowledge of the wide range of roles within the Health Care and Social Care sectors will grow over the 3 or 5 years they are studying the subject, learning how the 2 co-exist together and are supported by different agencies. Our curriculum ensures student’s are shown and taught how to make changes within a person’s life by using real case studies of a diverse range of people to help them develop empathy, compassion, effective communication skills and a reality of the challenges of life people face. Which in return helps them to reflect on their own attributes, building resilience and a deeper understanding of the changes that can be made. Students studying Health and Social Care can aspire to move into careers that support dementia patients, work as nurses and midwives, they can become support workers and carers, amongst learning about the background staff who help the settings to function, meaning that they can aspire to be anyone, whilst developing the knowledge of how to work with a wide range of people and know how to support themselves and those around them throughout their life.
Our curriculum aims to:
Empower our student’s knowledge about the influential factors that impact development across the life stages
Supports students to challenge their own ethics through developing empathy and the ability to look at issues from differing perspectives to help them solve problems.
Develop student’s curiosity through the vast range of real-life case studies we refer to.
Inspire students to learn about and pursue different careers within the Health and Social Care sectors
Empower students to know what support is out there for themselves and others and how this support can help overcome barriers to care.
Our broad and balanced curriculum concentrates on developing our students’ key knowledge and skills, and enhances their understanding of the world around them.
Stimulating intellectual curiosity by introducing them to a vast range of psychological theories that help to understand human development, which encourages them to independently reflect on the world around them.
Facilitating collaboration through learning about the importance of multi-disciplinary approaches to support people.
Promoting challenge for all, irrespective of starting point, as this is a new subject at KS4 or KS5 students are challenged from the first lesson with learning new content and themes that they haven’t faced before.
Enabling creativity, by supporting a person holistically within their work and practically they develop the skills to think outside the box and how this creative thinking and abstract thought can help support people who need it the most.
Sequencing learning to ensure logical progression, both horizontally and vertically, units are taught in an order to ensure that themes and knowledge that underpins all units is taught first, with all students starting with pre-requisite content first to ensure there is a base starting point.
Revisiting previous learning to support the transfer to long-term memory, students are taught how to make connections between content, which is explicitly taught throughout the course meaning that as their knowledge grows, they can see how it all connects, helping to put theory into context, across the units.
Compassionate individuals who ask the question ‘What happened?’ rather than ‘What’s wrong?’
More resilient due to understanding what creates resilience and how this can be practiced.
Moral practitioners who logically think about the approaches they take when confronted with ethical problems
Caring individuals who want to help and support those around them.
As a result of our curriculum students will leave with the skills and knowledge to be compassionate, caring, courageous, competent, committed and effective communicators. They will have the knowledge of how they can make a difference to another person’s life no matter what they choose to do.
KS4 Health and Social Care Specification
610950 Specification Cambridge Nationals Health And Social Care J835
KS5 Extended BTEC in Health and Social Care
9781446938003 BTEC Nat ExCert HSC AG Spec Iss3C
KS5 BTEC in Health and Social Care
9781446950937 BTEC Nat Dip HSC AG Spec ISS10 150622 Diploma
In Year 9, students can choose health and social care as an option. We start by learning how people grow and develop over the course of their lives, starting at infancy through to later adulthood. The learning of this development involves PIES – the Physical, Intellectual, Emotional and Social factors – and what role they play within development. It then looks into how different factors can affect this. These major life events may be seen as marriage or parenthood; what then is observed is how people can adapt to this change, the understanding of this being shown through assignment-based assessment.
In Year 10, learning is done both through studying and practical work. Here an insight is given into the various groups who use or work in the healthcare industry and what title they may come under.
This could be the ‘service users’ (those using the services), or the ‘service providers’ (those trained to give the care). It looks at people who need care, making students aware that they are not always ill but may have disabilities or other difficulties like living day-to-day lives.
Care values are then covered, showing the importance of providing good health and social care values, giving an understanding of the importance that care values play to people when using the care services.
Pupils demonstrate their skills of the care values through roleplay, and their understanding shown through assignment assessment and roleplay assessment.
In Year 11, students focus on:
seeing what ‘healthy’ actually means
looking at how ‘healthy’ is not just about illness but for a person in late adulthood being mobile, having friends and being happy
the positive and negative factors that can influence the health and well-being of a person
interpreting the readings of lifestyle indicators, and in so being able to interpret someone’s state of health
being able to design a plan with short and long-term targets to help a person get back into a healthy lifestyle
being aware of the barriers when people are trying to change to a healthy lifestyle. Their understanding of this is shown through an exam.
At RFSS we offer two BTEC Level 3 Health and Social Care pathways, we offer the Diploma which is equivalent to 2 A Levels, as well as the Extended Certificate, which is equivalent to 1 A Level.
Within both courses we prepare students for a wide range of occupations within health, education and social care services. We also prepare students for careers that work with a diverse range of people and target groups, within different sectors; public, private and the charitable sector.
We learn important skills that allow students to be able to work with people who have additional needs, learn how to have a person centered approach with their care, how to problem solve to put the best care and support in place for individuals and their families. We learn about how to identify problems that may arise within an individual’s life and how it may have an impact on their overall health and wellbeing.
Across both Extended Certificate and Diploma students learn about the vast number of careers and areas to work in within the Health and Social Care sector, within the Diploma they will be required to develop their knowledge more by completing 100 hours of work experience within the sector.
To read more about the 2 courses see the specification guides on the web page. We choose the optional units based on the cohort so these can change each year, this is due to selecting the units that will support the students the most in terms of the careers they want to progress into.
Paramedic / Ambulance Care Attendant / Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD) / Ambulance Call Taker / Pharmacists / Pharmacy Technician / Pharmacy/Dispensing Assistant / Medicines Counter Assistant / Social Worker / Social Care Worker / Allied Health Professionals (AHP) / Careers in Art Therapy / Dietitian / Occupational Therapist / Orthoptist / Physiotherapist / Podiatrist / Prosthetist and Orthotist / Radiographer / Speech and Language Therapist / Clinical Psychologist / Dental Nurse / Orthodontic Therapist / Dental Technician/Technologist / Dentist / Dental Hygienist / Childrens Nurse / Adult Nurse / Mental Health Nurse / Optometrist / Administration and Clerical Officer / Caterer / Domestic Services / Estates Officer / Healthcare Manager / ICT Officer / Medical Secretary / Porter / Security Officer / Support Team Worker