BTEC Health & Social Care

Welcome to the BTEC National Diploma in Health & Social Care

Find out more about the subject

What do our students say about Health & Social Care?

Alongside her A Levels, Amour is a member of our Student Management Team. She is particularly passionate about maintaining a positive Sixth Form environment.

My favourite thing about studying Health and Social Care is that as we are working through the course, each new topic allows me to keep on re-jogging my memory on the previous topics that we have learnt. In lesson when we go over it, I can understand each new topic without having to look back as much.

Before I began studying Health and Social Care, I should have looked up what the BTEC qualification gets me – most universities will see it as exactly the same as A Levels, but you should check. This course is especially useful if you want to go to work in the healthcare sector in the future.

For new Year 12s, I want to say don’t be afraid about starting Sixth Form even if you’re new to Crompton House, there are plenty of people who will easily come and talk to you to make sure you feel welcomed in your new environment and the staff are lovely people so if you have any concerns just knock on the Sixth Form office door and they will help you with anything.

I am studying Psychology and Sociology along with Health and Social Care, and I am doing my EPQ in whether more expensive skincare products are actually better than the less expensive ones. After Sixth Form, my plan is to go to University, though I have not decided exactly what I want to study yet.

The best thing about studying Health and Social Care is how it consistently links to everyday life. We are learning about life and how it works, as well as how our bodies function. We’re also learning about how social care systems exist to support people when their health deteriorates and the reasons this can occur.

Health and Social Care is a lot of work, especially with the mix of exams and coursework. The first real exams are in January of Year 12, so you have to be on top of your work from the start. If you are organised and keep up with everything, it is a hugely rewarding subject to study. My best advice is that you need to try not to get behind on your work and be honest with yourself and your teachers if you do. Being prepared for lessons, even looking ahead to what is coming up, is really helpful.

As well as Health and Social Care, I also study Biology and Psychology. All three have areas where they overlap, so I can use my knowledge from each subject together.

After Sixth Form I am planning to go to university. At the moment I am looking into courses in Children’s Nursing or Psychology, though I haven’t decided which I will apply for yet.

Sophie's three subjects - Health and Social Care, Biology and Psychology - all overlap and she's able to transfer her knowledge between the three.

Olivia's Gap Nurses placement in the Dominican Republic helped prepare her for her Children's Nursing application.

My favourite thing about studying Health and Social Care was the split between exams and coursework. This allowed me to manage my time more effectively and helped me as I would get feedback on how to improve my coursework so I could continue working until I achieved the best grade I could. This meant that if I hadn’t done as well as I wanted in my coursework, I could make changes and resubmit to get a higher grade.

Having said that, I wish I’d realised how time consuming some of the coursework assignments are and how I would have to be on top of my time management in order to do the best coursework I could alongside being set work from other subjects.

My advice to new students is to keep on top of things from the start and to keep organised. As there is lots of content in all your subejcts, it is good to makes notes and start exam questions from the start. This means you can always refer back to them if another topic overlaps with a previous one and it means you can go back and do quick revision sessions of previous topics to refresh your mind rather than overloading yourself before exams.
Other than Health and Social Care, I studied Psychology and Biology. The three link really well together, especially because I would like a career in the healthcare sector.
After Sixth Form, I plan to go to university to do Paediatric Nursing. Health and Social Care has prepared me for this as it helped me to understand that many different factors can affect health and how to provide the best care through the 6C’s whilst maintaining dignity. The BTEC Health and Social Care gives the perfect insight into the health and social care sectors and you learn about important issues and the way you can work best within this field of work.