Health and Social Care
The curriculum intent for Health and Social Care Department at La Retraite Roman Catholic Girls’ School aims to enable pupils to build their skills and knowledge in an engaging and enjoyable environment. Our Level 1, 2 and 3 courses provide learners with essential knowledge, transferable skills and tools to improve their learning in other subjects with the aim of enhancing their employability when they leave education, continuing to both their personal development and future economic well-being.
About 3 million people in the UK work in this industry and the need for health and social care providers is likely to increase especially as we face a global pandemic. Our rationale is to provide a fluid and dynamic knowledge-rich KS4 option curriculum, which gives learners access and enables progress to KS5 and beyond into jobs such as a nurse, midwife, care worker, nursery nurse practitioner, youth worker, social worker, a speech and language therapist, occupational therapist or counsellor to name a few.
We want our learners to develop empathy and good lifestyle choices, therefore at key stage 4, in year 10, we study essential values of care for use with individuals in care settings together with communicating and working with individuals in health, social care and early years settings. This is developed in year 11, where students develop an understanding of body systems and disorders together with understanding the nutrients needed for good health.
We want our learners to make outstanding progression should they choose to continue to study Level 3 health and social care at key stage 5. Therefore, students continue to develop their independent research skills which they apply to their coursework in year 12 and 13.
In year 12, students will be introduced to the many different relationships that they will encounter within the health and social care sector by doing so they will apply communication and relationship building skills in a practical way. Students will learn that promoting equality and respecting diversity and rights in health, social care and childcare environments is essential in today’s very diverse society. Finally in year 12, learners will be introduced to a unit on health, safety and security in health and social care. students will acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to equip then in maintaining a safe working environment for themselves, their colleagues and individuals who require care and support.
In year 11 students were introduced to body systems and nutrients and these units are developed upon in year 13. You will learn about the functions of the body systems involved in everyday activities and the maintenance of health. In addition, many health and social care workers are involved in the provision of meals, so it is important that students understand and can explain good nutrition. We also introduce students to a unit on sexual health, reproduction and early development stages. This unit will look at the development from conception to a one-year-old child. On successful completion students will have a sound understanding of the importance of sexual health, contraception, prenatal health, the various stages of pregnancy and the factors that could have an impact.
We hope to use our lessons to encourage our students to look at the world with an informed and enquiring mind. We believe that the most important part of our work is to equip all of our young people with the ability to live a full life where they can become confident and questioning individuals and provide them with the future to which they aspire.
The department aims to help young people develop a sense of self-worth and the wisdom to see the world through the eyes of others and to understand their place within the world. Overall, learners should be given the opportunity to self -reflect about choices they make and how they affect others.