Psychology
Advanced Level Psychology at King Solomon Academy
1. Intent: why do we teach what we teach?
- Link subject to big picture of the whole school mission, vision and values
- What are the underlying principles of how the curriculum is designed?
- How do you keep your knowledge and understanding of the curriculum up to date?
- Is there sufficient coverage, timetabling and progression of curriculum in this subject? How do you know?
- Which aspects of the curriculum are revised and repeated? What is the rationale for this? How well does the curriculum ensure progression and develop learning from one key stage to the next?
2. Implementation: how do we teach what we teach?
- Explain (in a table if most helpful) the curriculum hours/allocation/choice within the subject and the organisation of pupil work (e.g. ex books/folders/online etc)
- How many teachers are subject specialists? What training related to the curriculum in the six months to two years. Has there been any subject specific training for staff in your subject? How are non-specialist staff supported and consistency and quality of curriculum implementation assured?
- How do you ensure access for pupils/learners who have low prior attainment, including their basic skills such as reading?
- How does the curriculum meet the needs of all pupils/learners – particularly disadvantaged learners and learners who have additional needs/SEND.
- How well is the planned curriculum implemented? What checks do you make and what changes have you made as a result of your checks?
- How well does output match to the planned progression? Is planned progression evident?
- How well are resources used to support the curriculum? Do all pupils/learners have access to appropriate resources?
Subject |
Hours of Teaching per week per year |
Number of Teachers |
Teacher Experience (# yrs teaching subject) |
Examiner expertise |
Organisation of work |
Psychology |
5 |
1 |
6 |
1-year AQA examiner experience |
All work in folders and work packs. HW, assessment and PW found in folders. Consolidation in exercise books
|
In psychology, there has been one teacher leading the subject for one full academic year. This teacher is an experienced practitioner and an examiner for the AQA exam board, which is taught. There is only one teacher of the subject and there would therefore be a risk if the subject specialist left the school. The curriculum is fully planned with LTP and MTPs and a large body of lesson-by-lesson resources. While MTPs could be more detailed, all individual lessons have a teaching PowerPoint, and accompanying resources with homework’s and pre-works built in and there is an extensive bank of revision resources. The curriculum is designed to initially start teaching the approaches section of the course, although not the starting point of the syllabus, the approaches underpin the whole of psychology so without a level of understanding this unit, it would be difficult to build additional knowledge. This is also taught alongside some maths skills as 10% of the new A level course is mathematical content, so students understanding this, and teachers knowing the students understanding of statistics is crucial. All lessons have key elements of model presentation, real-world application and student practice, often to exam questions. Prework and ‘do nows’ are used as opportunities to expose students to wider reading, but also comprehension and prior lesson recall. In year 12, students are taught paper one topics, followed by paper two topics. In year 13, students are taught paper 3 topics. This is done so that students can develop their skills and understanding of the more basic topics before progressing onto the units where a deeper psychological understanding is needed.
3. Impact: how do we know what pupils have learnt and how well they have learnt it?
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How do you know what pupils have learnt? How do you check? When did you last check? What did this tell you? Use the language of formative and summative assessment
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How do teachers use assessment to adapt the curriculum and plan the right work? How well do staff understand the purpose of assessment?
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Does learning over time show progression and appropriate levels of challenge?
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How is assessment used to inform and improve curriculum design?