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Social Sciences

Sociology Vision

Curriculum Vision:

The intent of the Sociology curriculum is to equip students with the knowledge and skills to critically analyses the world around them. Our vision is to inspire the development of students sociological imagination and enhance their understanding of important societal issues that we increasingly face in a globalised, diverse and complex society. The curriculum is exciting, interesting, and relevant to students' lives. It helps students develop a wide range of knowledge and understanding about society at a local and global level and how sociologists’ study and understand its structures, processes, and issues. Our aim at The Duston School is a partnership between staff and students that is professional, educational, and supportive. Sociology provides students with the exciting opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the world around them and reflect on social issues that are often relevant to their own social experiences. The Sociology curriculum opens up fascinating discussions, for example ‘free will versus determined behaviour?’, ‘how do sociologists investigate inequality in society?’ and ‘what is the purpose of education?’ Students not only acquire worldly knowledge but a critical understanding of contemporary society and social changes that impact their own and the lives of millions like them.

Curriculum intent

  •  Provide students with a strong understanding of the methodological tools that sociologist’ use to study society.
  • To employ a knowledge led curriculum that embeds the key theoretical perspectives & studies. 
  • To deliver a coherently planned and sequenced curriculum that enables students to connect knowledge within and between different examined units.
  • To have a broad and engaging curriculum that facilitates the development of critical thinking that promotes future learning and employability skills. 
  • To deliver a curriculum that is ambitious and designed to give all learners, the knowledge and cultural capital they need to succeed in life.
 
Psychology Vision

The Psychology department is committed to excellence and providing an energetic learning environment for all learners. Our ultimate goal is to inspire learners and promote intellectual curiosity that will enable students to rigorously explore important psychological concepts and theories.

Health and Social Care

Philosophy/vision/hopes for the subject:

Vocational education is not just about results, it’s about educating people in the knowledge and skills required for employment and for the community as a whole. It’s also about developing the behaviours and attributes needed to progress and succeed in education and in work.

Our students will develop professional skills as well as theoretical knowledge and understanding to underpin their skills.

In Health and Social Care we hope to promote and develop the following:

  • Caring for people
  • Healthy lifestyle
  • Supporting people
  • Safety and security
  • Understanding issues relating to equality
  • Wellbeing
Child Development and Care

Our mission is to deliver high quality teaching that provides our students with the opportunity to gain a level 2 vocational qualification that gives a basic introduction to childcare and the development of children aged 0-5 years in the early years sector. Students will gain important knowledge and understanding of child development and well-being necessary for working with young children in a variety of settings. It also gives learners an insight into their preferred learning styles and assists in developing their ability to study.

Cambridge Technicals Health and Social Care Level 3 Extended Certificate

Year 12

Unit 1- Building Positive Relationships in Health and Social Care – Course Work

Unit 2 -Equality, Diversity and Rights in Health and Social Care- examined

Unit 3 -Health, Safety and Security in Health and Social Care – examined

Year 13

Unit 4 -Anatomy and Physiology for Health and Social Care - examined

Unit 5 - Infection Control - Course Work

Unit 24- Public Health– Course Work

Cambridge Technicals Health and Social Care Level 3 Diploma

Year 12

Unit 1- Building Positive Relationships in Health and Social Care- Course Work

Unit 2 -Equality, Diversity and Rights in Health and Social Care- Examined

Unit 3 -Health, Safety and Security in Health and Social Care – Examined

Unit 15 - Promoting Health and Wellbeing– Course Work

Unit 16- Supporting People with Dementia – Course Work

Unit 18- Caring for Older People - Course Work

Year 13

Unit 4 -Anatomy and Physiology for Health and Social Care - Examined

Unit 5 - Infection Control– Course Work

Unit 6- Personalisation and a Person-Centred Approach to Care- Examined

Unit 7 – Safeguarding  -Examined

Unit 14- The Impact of Long-Term Physiological Conditions -Course Work

Unit 24- Public Health– Course Work

Year 12 Sociology

  • Education – Year 1 (term 1)
  • You will examine :
  • The role and functions of the education system, including its relationship to the economy and to class structure
  • Differential educational achievement of social groups by social class, gender and ethnicity in contemporary society
  • Relationships and processes within schools, with particular reference to teacher/pupil relationships, pupil identities and subcultures, the hidden curriculum, and the organisation of teaching and learning
  • The significance of educational policies, including policies of selection, marketization and privatisation, and policies to achieve greater equality of opportunity or outcome, for an understanding of the structure, role, impact and experience of and access to education; the impact of globalisation on educational policy.
  • Research Methods– Year 1 ( term 2)
  • You will examine :
  • Quantitative and qualitative methods of research; research design
  • Sources of data, including questionnaires, interviews, participant and non-participant observation, experiments, documents and official statistics
  • The distinction between primary and secondary data, and between quantitative and qualitative data
  • The relationship between positivism, Interpretivism and sociological methods; the nature of ‘social facts’
  • The theoretical, practical and ethical considerations influencing choice of topic, choice of method(s) and the conduct of research.
  • Families and Households – Year 1 (Term 3)
  • You will examine :
  • The relationship of the family to the social structure and social change, with particular reference to the economy and to state policies
  • Changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, separation, divorce, childbearing and the life course, including the sociology of personal life, and the diversity of contemporary family and household structures
  • Gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships within the family in contemporary society
  • The nature of childhood, and changes in the status of children in the family and society
  • Demographic trends in the United Kingdom since 1900: birth rates, death rates, family size, life expectancy, ageing population, and migration and globalisation.

Year 13 Sociology

  • Beliefs in Society – (Year 1, Term 3 and term 1 of year 2)
  • You will examine:
  • Ideology, science and religion, including both Christian and non-Christian religious traditions
  • The relationship between social change and social stability, and religious beliefs, practices and organisations
  • Religious organisations, including cults, sects, denominations, churches and New Age movements, and their relationship to religious and spiritual belief and practice
  • The relationship between different social groups and religious/spiritual organisations and movements, beliefs and practices
  • The significance of religion and religiosity in the contemporary world, including the nature and extent of secularisation in a global context, and globalisation and the spread of religions.
  • Crime and Deviance – term 2 of year 2
  • You will examine :
  • Crime, deviance, social order and social control
  • The social distribution of crime and deviance by ethnicity, gender and social class, including recent patterns and trends in crime
  • Globalisation and crime in contemporary society; the media and crime; green crime; human rights and state crimes
  • Crime control, surveillance, prevention and punishment, victims, and the role of the criminal justice system and other agencies.
  • Theory and Methods- term 2 and term 3 of Year 2
  • You will examine the following areas:
  • Quantitative and qualitative methods of research; research design
  • Sources of data, including questionnaires, interviews, participant and non-participant observation, experiments, documents and official statistics
  • The distinction between primary and secondary data, and between quantitative and qualitative data
  • The relationship between positivism, interpretivism and sociological methods; the nature of ‘social facts’
  • The theoretical, practical and ethical considerations influencing choice of topic, choice of method(s) and the conduct of research
  • Consensus, conflict, structural and social action theories
  • The concepts of modernity and post-modernity in relation to sociological theory
  • The nature of science and the extent to which Sociology can be regarded as scientific
  • The relationship between theory and methods
  • Debates about subjectivity, objectivity and value freedom
  • The relationship between Sociology and social policy.

Year 12 Psychology

Attachment Term 1, year 1

  • Caregiver-infant interactions in humans: reciprocity and interactional synchrony. Stages of attachment identified by Schaffer. Multiple attachments and the role of the father.
  • Animal studies of attachment: Lorenz and Harlow.
  • Explanations of attachment: learning theory and Bowlby’s monotropic theory. The concepts of a critical period and an internal working model.
  • Ainsworth’s ‘Strange Situation’. Types of attachment: secure, insecure-avoidant and insecure-resistant. Cultural variations in attachment, including van Ijzendoorn.
  • Bowlby’s theory of maternal deprivation. Romanian orphan studies: effects of institutionalisation.
  • The influence of early attachment on childhood and adult relationships, including the role of an internal working model.

Social influence Term 1, year 1

  • Types of conformity: internalisation, identification and compliance. Explanations for conformity: informational social influence and normative social influence, and variables affecting conformity including group size, unanimity and task difficulty as investigated by Asch.
  • Conformity to social roles as investigated by Zimbardo.
  • Explanations for obedience: agentic state and legitimacy of authority, and situational variables affecting obedience including proximity, location and uniform, as investigated by Milgram. Dispositional explanation for obedience: the Authoritarian Personality.
  • Explanations of resistance to social influence, including social support and locus of control.
  • Minority influence including reference to consistency, commitment and flexibility.
  • The role of social influence processes in social change.

Memory- term 2, year 1

  • The multi-store model of memory: sensory register, short-term memory and long-term memory. Features of each store: coding, capacity and duration.
  • Types of long-term memory: episodic, semantic, procedural.
  • The working memory model: central executive, phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer. Features of the model: coding and capacity.
  • Explanations for forgetting: proactive and retroactive interference and retrieval failure due to absence of cues.
  • Factors affecting the accuracy of eyewitness testimony: misleading information, including leading questions and post-event discussion; anxiety.
  • Improving the accuracy of eyewitness testimony, including the use of the cognitive interview

Psychopathology- term 2, year1

  • Definitions of abnormality, including deviation from social norms, failure to function adequately, statistical infrequency and deviation from ideal mental health.
  • The behavioural, emotional and cognitive characteristics of phobias, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
  • The behavioural approach to explaining and treating phobias: the two-process model, including classical and operant conditioning; systematic desensitisation, including relaxation and use of hierarchy; flooding.
  • The cognitive approach to explaining and treating depression: Beck’s negative triad and Ellis’s ABC model; cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), including challenging irrational thoughts.
  • The biological approach to explaining and treating OCD: genetic and neural explanations; drug therapy.

Approaches in Psychology term 3, year1

  • Origins of Psychology: Wundt, introspection and the emergence of Psychology as a science.
  • The basic assumptions of the following approaches:
  • Learning approaches: the behaviourist approach, including classical conditioning and Pavlov’s research, operant conditioning, types of reinforcement and Skinner’s research; social learning theory including imitation, identification, modelling, vicarious reinforcement, the role of mediational processes and Bandura’s research.
  • The cognitive approach: the study of internal mental processes, the role of schema, the use of theoretical and computer models to explain and make inferences about mental processes. The emergence of cognitive neuroscience.
  • The biological approach: the influence of genes, biological structures and neurochemistry on behaviour. Genotype and phenotype, genetic basis of behaviour, evolution and behaviour.

Research methods – year 1, term 1,2 and 3

  • Students should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the following research methods, scientific processes and techniques of data handling and analysis, be familiar with their use and be aware of their strengths and limitations:
  • Experimental method. Types of experiment, laboratory and field experiments; natural and quasi-experiments.
  • Observational techniques. Types of observation: naturalistic and controlled observation; covert and overt observation; participant and non-participant observation.
  • Self-report techniques. Questionnaires; interviews, structured and unstructured.
  • Correlations. Analysis of the relationship between co-variables. The difference between correlations and experiments.

Year 13 Psychology

Issues and debates in Psychology Term 3, year 1

  • Gender and culture in Psychology – universality and bias. Gender bias including androcentrism and alpha and beta bias; cultural bias, including ethnocentrism and cultural relativism.
  • Free will and determinism: hard determinism and soft determinism; biological, environmental and psychic determinism. The scientific emphasis on causal explanations.
  • The nature-nurture debate: the relative importance of heredity and environment in determining behaviour; the interactionist approach.
  • Holism and reductionism: levels of explanation in Psychology. Biological reductionism and environmental (stimulus-response) reductionism.
  • Idiographic and nomothetic approaches to psychological investigation.
  • Ethical implications of research studies and theory, including reference to social sensitivity.

Relationships – Term 1, year2

  • The evolutionary explanations for partner preferences, including the relationship between sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour.
  • Factors affecting attraction in romantic relationships: self-disclosure; physical attractiveness, including the matching hypothesis; filter theory, including social demography, similarity in attitudes and complementarity.
  • Theories of romantic relationships: social exchange theory, equity theory and Rusbult’s investment model of commitment, satisfaction, comparison with alternatives and investment. Duck’s phase model of relationship breakdown: intra-psychic, dyadic, social and grave dressing phases.
  • Virtual relationships in social media: self-disclosure in virtual relationships; effects of absence of gating on the nature of virtual relationships.
  • Parasocial relationships: levels of parasocial relationships, the absorption addiction model and the attachment theory explanation.

Schizophrenia – term 1 and 2, year 2

  • Classification of schizophrenia. Positive symptoms of schizophrenia, including hallucinations and delusions. Negative symptoms of schizophrenia, including speech poverty and avolition. Reliability and validity in diagnosis and classification of schizophrenia, including reference to co-morbidity, culture and gender bias and symptom overlap.
  • Biological explanations for schizophrenia: genetics, the dopamine hypothesis and neural correlates.
  • Psychological explanations for schizophrenia: family dysfunction and cognitive explanations, including dysfunctional thought processing.
  • Drug therapy: typical and atypical antipsychotics.
  • Cognitive behaviour therapy and family therapy as used in the treatment of schizophrenia. Token economies as used in the management of schizophrenia.

The importance of an interactionist approach in explaining and treating schizophrenia; the diathesis-stress model

Addiction term 2, year 2

  • Describing addiction: physical and psychological dependence, tolerance and withdrawal syndrome.
  • Risk factors in the development of addiction, including genetic vulnerability, stress, personality, family influences and peers.
  • Explanations for nicotine addiction: brain neurochemistry, including the role of dopamine, and learning theory as applied to smoking behaviour, including reference to cue reactivity.
  • Explanations for gambling addiction: learning theory as applied to gambling, including reference to partial and variable reinforcement; cognitive theory as applied to gambling, including reference to cognitive bias.
  • Reducing addiction: drug therapy; behavioural interventions, including aversion therapy and covert sensitisation; cognitive behaviour therapy.

The application of the following theories of behaviour change to addictive behaviour; the theory of planned behaviour and Prochaska’s six-stage model of behaviour change.

Biopsychology – term 3, year 2

  • The divisions of the nervous system: central and peripheral (somatic and autonomic).
  • The structure and function of sensory, relay and motor neurons. The process of synaptic transmission, including reference to neurotransmitters, excitation and inhibition.
  • The function of the endocrine system: glands and hormones.
  • The fight or flight response including the role of adrenaline.
  • Localisation of function in the brain and hemispheric lateralisation: motor, somatosensory, visual, auditory and language centres; Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, split brain research. Plasticity and functional recovery of the brain after trauma.
  • Ways of studying the brain: scanning techniques, including functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); electroencephalogram (EEGs) and event-related potentials (ERPs); post-mortem examinations.
  • Biological rhythms: circadian, infradian and ultradian and the difference between these rhythms. The effect of endogenous pacemakers and exogenous zeitgebers on the sleep/wake cycle.

Research methods term 1,2,3

  • Students should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the following research methods, scientific processes and techniques of data handling and analysis, be familiar with their use and be aware of their strengths and limitations.
  • Experimental method. Types of experiment, laboratory and field experiments; natural and quasi-experiments.
  • Observational techniques. Types of observation: naturalistic and controlled observation; covert and overt observation; participant and non-participant observation.
  • Self-report techniques. Questionnaires; interviews, structured and unstructured.
  • Correlations. Analysis of the relationship between co-variables. The difference between correlations and experiments.
  • Content analysis.
  • Case studies.

University Courses

Health and Social Care – BSc (HONS) - Anglian Ruskin University

https://www.anglia.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/health-and-social-care-london

Develop the attitudes, abilities and competences you need to work in health and social care, in the UK and internationally, with our undergraduate degree courses in ... Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge and Chelmsford.

Courses

Acute Care (Top-Up) - BSc (Hons)

Learn more about caring for acutely ill adults, and top-up your existing nursing qualification to a BSc (Hons) in just one year. You’ll learn about current laws, procedures and best practice in this field while enhancing your leadership, decision-making and teamwork skills.

Full-time undergraduate

Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough (Guild House)

Learn more about caring for acutely ill adults, and top-up your existing nursing qualification to a BSc (Hons). You’ll learn about current laws, procedures and best practice in this field while enhancing your leadership, decision-making and teamwork skills.

Part-time undergraduate

Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough (Guild House)

The FdSc Assistant Practitioner (Nursing) is designed to develop healthcare assistants to develop their roles and knowledge base. You will be working in your existing role while studying and applying learning to the work environment. Completion of the course can lead to a career in nursing.

Full-time undergraduate

Chelmsford, Cambridge

Our BSc (Hons) Child and Adolescent Mental Wellbeing aims to meet the personal, professional and educational requirements of mental health professionals, staff and any other interested parties in this area of care need.

Part-time undergraduate

Chelmsford

Already a qualified nurse or midwife? Join our degree course in Year 3 to develop your understanding of child health, and how you can deliver high standards of care to infants, children, young people and their families.

Part-time undergraduate

Cambridge, Chelmsford, Peterborough (Guild House)

District nurses care for people in their home and in the community. If you’re already a qualified nurse, this course will develop your community nursing skills. You’ll learn to lead teams in delivering excellent patient-centred care, improve your caseload management and independent working skills, and gain a prescribing qualification.

Full-time undergraduate

Cambridge, Chelmsford

Our exciting course is designed for qualified counsellors and psychotherapists to top up their training to a full BA (Hons) and engage in practical research. You’ll develop your skills, knowledge, clinical practice and enhance employability with a choice of two specialist routes: Counselling Adults or Counselling Children and Young People.

Part-time undergraduate

Renew Counselling - Chelmsford

Our exciting course is designed for qualified counsellors and psychotherapists to top up their training to a full BA (Hons) and engage in practical research. You’ll develop your skills, knowledge, clinical practice and enhance employability with a choice of two specialist routes: Counselling Adults or Counselling Children and Young People.

Full-time undergraduate

Renew Counselling - Chelmsford

Become a professional counsellor who specialises in working with children and young adults. Studying at Renew Counselling in Chelmsford, you’ll get modern, specialist clinical training in an exciting and authentic environment.

Part-time undergraduate

Explore the world through a child’s eyes as you develop your skills in childcare. Our course combines theory and practice to lay the foundation for a rewarding career path. You will enter the workforce as a graduate, leading high quality practice in a host of roles and registered settings, working closely with children and their families.

Health and Social Care BSc (Hons) / FdSc

This degree course is accredited by University College Birmingham.

Career options:

Residential care

Domiciliary care

Respite care

Mental health care

Care management

Nursing (NHS) including midwifery

Allied Medical Professions

Nursery Nursing

Early Years Teaching

NB The list is not exhaustive it can go on and on

Philosophy/vision/hopes for the subject:

Vocational education is not just about results, it’s about educating  people in the knowledge and skills required for employment and for the community as a whole. It’s also about developing the behaviours and attributes needed to progress and succeed in education and in work.

Our students will develop professional skills as well as theoretical knowledge and understanding to underpin their skills.

In Health and Social Care we hope to promote and develop the following:

  • Caring for people
  • Healthy lifestyle
  • Supporting people
  • Safety and security
  • Understanding issues relating to equality
  • Wellbeing

Sociology and Psychology Careers