Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School & Sixth Form College
Health & Social Care
Intent
In BTEC Tech Award Health and Social Care our intent is to give students an insight into a variety of aspects of the health and social care environment, ranging from how the human develops from birth to death to different types of support that might be used, and to seeing how care values are expressed. The Health and Social Care course is a vocational qualification which takes an engaging, practical and inspiring approach to learning and assessment. The course equips students with an understanding of how to meet the needs of individuals using services and specialist equipment, whilst challenging stereotypes and discrimination.
The study of care values is at the heart of Health and Social Care which develops skills such as empathy, compassion, commitment, tolerance and empowerment. This enables our students to become educated citizens and contributes to society in a positive way. The curriculum within Health and Social Care supports the ethos within the school as the subject is broad, balanced and relevant to the needs of students and employers. The course is designed so that the units build upon each other as the students grow in confidence, leading to an external synoptic assessment. This allows the students to embed their knowledge whilst giving opportunities to put into practice what they learn. It also helps students to develop their technical skills, which they can apply to real life scenarios through case studies and, where possible, local community contexts.
Implementation
The implementation of the BTEC Tech Award Health and Social Care will provide a wide range of learning experiences which are accessible to students of all abilities. This involves group work opportunities, clearly differentiated tasks, report writing through internal assessments and examination techniques for external assessments and controlled assessments. Aspirational teaching encourages students to complete tasks above target grade and emphasises, where possible, the importance of real world experiences through trips and visitors. At Level 2, the internally assessed units are designed to promote deep learning through ensuring the connection between knowledge and practice. The content is split into 3 components, as follows
Component 1 – Human Lifespan Development
Component 2 – Health and Social Care Services and Values
Component 3 – Health and Wellbeing
Impact
The BTEC Tech Award Health and Social Care curriculum has a positive impact on the outcomes of every student. It raises awareness of different needs and the range of services available. It promotes good health which will provide life-long benefits to themselves and their families. It has a high success rate in terms of academic results and destinations of students with a consistently high number of students exceeding expectations. Finally, students express their enjoyment within the subject and consistently engage and participate in all activities given.
Examination Board
The examination board for this subject is Pearson EdExcel.