Social Sciences

Social Sciences are introduced at KS3 through a variety of subjects, notably ECS, Citizenship, Geography and History. In Year 10 students can choose to develop this understanding further with GCSE courses in Sociology – or also in other humanities subjects.

Unit 1:

• Studying Society – looking into the research process and evaluating methods including observations, questionnaires and interviews.
• Families and Households –  explaining family diversity i.e. couple/lone-parent, heterosexual/gay, extended/nuclear and reconstituted. Sociological approaches to the family – functionalist, Marxist and feminist as well as New Right perspectives. Changes in relationships and roles within the family and explanations of the growth in the divorce rate and its consequences.
• Education – explaining variations in achievement according to social class, ethnicity and gender. Influences on achievement including parental values, peer groups, streaming, labelling, teacher expectations, economic circumstances and cultural background. The functions of the educational system and other educational debates.

Unit 2:

• Crime and Deviance – the social distribution of crime in terms of class, age, gender, ethnicity and locality. Explanations for criminal and deviant behaviour such as sub-cultural theories, labelling theory and relative deprivation. The usefulness of official crime figures, and self-report and victim studies.
• Social Stratification – explaining the nature of stratification e.g. the unequal distribution of wealth, income, status and power. Stratification systems based on class, gender, ethnicity and religion. Sociological explanations of poverty e.g. the cycle of poverty, the culture of poverty, the culture of dependency and structural explanations. The major debates about inequality including the extent to which modern Britain can be considered a meritocracy and the continued significance of class. The power relationships that exist in society.
• Methods in Context – applying the methods learned in unit one to novel stem material associated with areas of the specification.

Download our Curriculum Maps:

• Y10 HWS Sociology Curriculum Map
• Y11 HWS Sociology Curriculum Map

Criminology

The study of criminology brings together a range of different disciplines to explain, prevent, manage and control offending behaviour. You will learn about psychological theories of why people commit crimes and sociological theories of why some groups of people are more likely to commit crimes than others. You will also learn about media representations of criminality and their consequences. You will consider models of punishment and prevention, including the organisation of the legal system, and assess how effectively the law enforcement agencies have been with different crime prevention and reduction strategies. Throughout the course you will study and use real life cases of crimes from UK society as evidence for your assignments.

You will need to build a comprehensive awareness of the legal system, of crime and society so a keen interests in these aspects of the current affairs is vital. Because of the cross over in material between psychology, sociology and criminology, it will be expected that you will only study a maximum of two of these subjects.

Psychology

Psychology is the scientific study of how people think, feel and behave. It provides a fascinating insight into how the mind works, looking at a variety of topics including memory, social conditioning, brain development and general human behaviour. Whilst Psychology is one of the most popular subjects at degree level, the skills you will develop at A level will also be useful in a very wide range of other subjects. It is excellent preparation for a degree course in psychology and for a wide range of careers, including Educational, Clinical, Occupational and Forensic Psychology, Medicine, Teaching, Counselling, PR, Marketing, Broadcasting and Advertising. Psychology is regarded as a good “gateway” A level to many degree courses.

Subject content:

• Social influence
• Memory
• Attachment
• Approaches in Psychology
• Psychopathology
• Research methods
• Biopsychology
• Issues and debates in Psychology

Sociology

In KS5 important and challenging questions are learnt about and discussed in lessons: what makes us the people we are? Why do we spend so much time worrying about how we present ourselves to the outside world? Why is it that girls perform better in their GCSEs than boys? How does the media influence the way we see our own bodies? Why are there such massive differences between the richest and poorest in society? What are the different explanations for why people commit crime?

Subject content:

• Education
• Methods in Context
• Research Methods
• Culture and identity
• Families and Households
• Health
• Work, Poverty and Welfare
• Beliefs in Society
• Global Development
• The Media
• Stratification and Differentiation

Politics

If you have an interest in how political decisions are reached and who has the power to influence them you will enjoy this course. It provides lots of opportunities for discussion and debate, and complements the study of many other A Level subjects such as History, Sociology, Economics and Philosophy extremely well. Studying Politics is ideal if you have ambitions to study International Relations, History, Law, Politics, or Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) at university.