Psychology

About Psychology

The aim of the psychology department is to encourage students through active participation in a range of activities, to develop their comprehension of this new subject in an informative and enjoyable way. The students are directed to reflect upon their own progress and to be aware of the predicted grade they should be aiming to achieve and hopefully excel (this is called their DES prediction).

Psychology is an exciting subject with many practical applications, there are opportunities to replicate famous experiments and for students to design their own experiments. Psychology is a very versatile subject and as a degree course leads to a range of professional occupations including educational psychologist, criminal psychologist, occupational psychologist as well as psychiatrist to name a few.

The department is well resourced with internet and whiteboard projection facilities. We aim to be a listening department and if you have any queries or concerns please do not hesitate to contact cgarnockjones@silverdale.sheffield.sch.uk or contact the school directly. May we also recommend you visit the website of the British Psychological Society at www.bps.org.uk. This contains a wealth of useful information.

As a department we are committed to professional development and have undergone a wide range of training. Mrs Garnock-Jones has an M.A. in Post 16 Education and is developing study support practice in our Sixth Form, as well as being an A level examiner for Psychology.

Mrs Evans is also a trained mentor and we feel we are able to put all these skills together to produce a forward thinking department that aims to support and encourage all students to perform to their personal best.  Miss Hodkinson makes good use of her psychology degree and brings a fresh approach to the department.

Staff in the psychology department are keen to establish links with other schools and were first to host a network meeting of teachers from four local schools to promote common issues of benefit for all students and to share good practice amongst ourselves.

Curriculum

KS5

We study AS and A2 AQA psychology at AS. We study six topics including cognitive, social, cognitive developmental, psychodynamic learning and physiological. We encourage students to produce an independent research study.  For A2 there are more modules including clinical psychology, research and statistical tests and finally a synoptic module which revisits earlier work but also explores contemporary debates within the subject. For a full description visit www.aqa.org.uk.

Homework

Homework is set every week, it is expected to take between 2 – 3 hours to complete properly. There is a reading list on display in the class room to support their studies. Homework tasks are varied and attempt to reinforce comprehension of class work or may be research based to prepare for a new topic area, may be set questions or practice exam questions.

Failure to hand in homework results in a D or E effort grade for monitoring purposes and repeated failure is deal with by Subject Leader and ultimately Head of Post 16.

Extra-Curricular Activities

We offer a range of activities and to illustrate have included a sample of typical ones. There are visits to pre-schools to observe and explore young children at play, conferences appropriate to needs are visited, workshop sessions with Principal Examiners have also been a strong feature of the department. We have arranged visits to stage hypnotists and community self help groups for those dealing with anorexia. We also identify our gifted and talented students who are singled out for master classes by eminent psychologists at Sheffield Hallam and the University of Sheffield staff. We try to support students whatever their learning needs.

We have produced a video introducing the department which can be seen on the school network system. We also offer careers advice in psychology. There is a small selection of materials relating to careers in the Psychology main teaching rooms – B107 and B102.