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Psychology
Curriculum Intent
Psychology is all about human behaviour, how people act and why they act in certain ways. The subject acts as a bridge between Sciences and Humanities, mixing the empirical and objective, to the subjective and qualitative, where a range of debates can be argued and supported with a range of evidence.
We want to develop students who question, who do not take information at face value, we want to develop critical thinking skills, where students assess the reliability and the validity of what they read or see, making judgements about the purpose of it.
We want students to gain a clear understanding of a range of different areas of Psychology, and human behaviour in general, helping students to gain a better understanding of the people around them. Across the two Key Stages, topics on mental health will be taught, with the aim of removing taboo and thus reducing the stigma of poor mental health.
Students will start with the Research Methods topic; the fundamentals and foundations needed to grow and gain understanding in the course, to be able to critique and evaluate the studies looked at during their time studying Psychology; identifying the respective strengths and weaknesses, suggesting improvements in the research.
Students will know that Psychology can be broken down into a range of areas and approaches with studies done to test hypotheses and better explain behaviour.
Students will learn about a range of Psychological research, the background to them, how they were conducted, what they found and what that means in the bigger picture.
Students will gain knowledge of a range of debates in Psychology, applying them to the real world to better equip them to assess the validity and reliability of what they read and learn.
Key Stage 4
Students will follow the OCR GCSE Specification.
As this is a new subject that students have not studied specifically in the past, student will start with the Research Methods topic to give them a foundation for the rest of the course. This will use their knowledge and understanding from subjects such as Science and Mathematics
Students will study units on Mental Health, Crime, Social Influence, Development, Memory, Sleep & Dreaming. The Mental Health unit topic will be done first to emphasise the importance in student’s everyday life.
During each of the six topics, students will learn about a range of theories to explain behaviour, as well as at least one piece of research pertaining to the theory. They will then be able to answer questions that test their knowledge, but also their ability to apply their understanding and to evaluate what they have learned.
Under review
Under review
Key Stage 5
There are currently two options for KS5 Psychology – A-Level Psychology following the OCR Specification (due for update 2026) and BTEC Extended Certificate Applied Psychology (Sept 2025 is currently the final cohort being funded).
The aim of the A-Level course is for those students who have completed the GCSE and want to further their knowledge, or for those students who have attained very good results in their examinations, specifically English, Maths and Science. There are three units of study; Research Methods, Themes from Core Studies and Applied Psychology.
Research Methods will still be the first topic taught, with students needing a greater level of understanding and a greater breadth of knowledge than what was covered at KS4, including inferential statistics.
Themes from Core Studies will look at 5 areas of Psychology – Biological, Cognitive, Developmental, Individual Differences and Social. Each area will have two pairs of studies relating to a key theme. As well as this, students will look at eight debates and two perspectives that can be applied to the content.
Lastly, in year 13, students will do the Applied Psychology unit. This covers Mental Health, Crime/Forensic Psychology and Child Psychology. The main aim of this is to be able to apply knowledge to real-life applications. This unit is most akin to how the subject is taught at University level and is a key factor in why this specification is taught at Whitby.
The alternative route, Applied Psychology, is offered for those with lower GCSE grades, or for those students who prefer a mixture of Examined units and Coursework-assessed units. In year 12, students will cover an externally-examined unit of Theories and Approaches in Psychology which looks at Biological, Social, Cognitive and Behavioural Psychology can explain behaviour. This then gets applied to the specific content on Aggression, Consumerism and Gender. At the same time, students will study a coursework-assessed unit looking at research methods, culminating in them conducting and evaluating their own piece of research.
In year 13, students will do their larger unit on Health Psychology – which differs from the A-level in that it mainly focuses on Stress, Addiction and Health management procedures/treatments. Students will also cover their final coursework unit on Forensic Psychology, in which students will write reports on explanations of crime, punishment and behaviour management techniques, and lastly, criminal profiling – and writing their own profiles using the top-down and the bottom-up techniques.
Under review…
Under review…