The Psychology curriculum is a two-year journey which is designed to support the school’s intent of developing students to learn, love and live to experience life in all its fullness. We develop wisdom, knowledge and skill through encouraging scientific enquiry, critical thinking and analysis providing students with the tools necessary to communicate effectively in their written and oral work. Students will develop greater understanding of how to live amongst others and make others feel valued, demonstrating dignity and respect for differing views and cultures and an awareness of how one’s environment influences behaviour. We want students to love learning psychology and so our curriculum is designed to expose them to as wide and diverse a range of topics as possible.
AQA 7182
Students study the AQA specification which, in the first year, introduces six main areas of Psychology: Social Influence, Memory, Attachment, Research Methods, Approaches and Psychopathology.
Psychology in the second year becomes more specialised. Students study Issues and Debates in Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Gender, Schizophrenia and Research Methods. The second-year topics are assessed alongside the first-year topics in the A level exams.
At KS5 independent learning is essential if students are to achieve or exceed their target grade. Tasks are based around preparation for the lesson, post-lesson review, exam skills through completing short answer questions, essay writing, re-drafting work, past exam papers and revision.
Psychology Society takes place on a fortnightly basis providing the opportunity to cover topics in more depth and explore areas not on the exam syllabus. The Psychology Department lead several cross-curricular activities throughout the year to raise awareness of World Mental Health Day, Mental Health Awareness Week, Stephen Lawrence Day and LGBT History Month.
Enrichment trips take place to New York alongside the Sociology Department. Enrichment trips are planned to enrich understanding of topics from across the specification, for example, the Jack the Ripper tour to further explore offender profiling.