Skills you learn from Sociology (Year 11)

Sociology builds a distinctive mix of skills - questioning assumptions, weighing competing theories, designing research, and listening to people whose lives differ from your own. This lesson plan will help you to show Year 11 students the skills they've built and which subjects build the same ones.

This lesson is designed to be delivered in 30 minutes as a teacher-led classroom activity.

This activity supports the following frameworks:

  • Gatsby Benchmark 4

This activity is suitable for Year 11 and features careers linked to the following subjects:

  • Sociology

This is one of three lesson plans designed for Year 11 Sociology teachers:

These lesson plans will help you show students how Sociology connects to their future careers.

We recommend using this lesson plan at the end of the autumn term. By this point Year 11 students have over a year of GCSE Sociology behind them and are beginning to weigh post-16 options. Recognising the skills they've built - and seeing where the same skills are developed in other subjects - helps them choose a complementary set of A-Levels, T-Levels, or training routes.

Learning objectives

  • Students will name specific skills they've built through GCSE Sociology, with examples.
  • Students will recognise other subjects that build the same skills.
  • Students will consider how that shapes their post-16 choices.

Before the lesson

  • You will need a computer connected to the internet and a classroom screen.
  • Open the What can you do with Sociology? page and have it ready on the screen.
  • Review the Skills that Sociology builds section and think of recent teaching examples for each one - studies you've worked through, sociological perspectives you've compared, and research methods activities students will recall.

During the lesson

1. What have we studied over GCSE? (5 mins)

  • Ask students to call out studies, topics, or research methods activities they've covered in GCSE Sociology.
  • Write the suggestions on the board and highlight any patterns.

2. Skills that Sociology builds (15 mins)

  • Bring up the What can you do with Sociology? page on the classroom screen.
  • Review the contents of the page with students so that they understand what it covers.
  • Scroll to the Skills that Sociology builds section and work through each skill in turn.
    • Ask students which study, topic, or methods activity from the board involved that skill.
    • Share your own teaching examples if students are stuck.

3. The same skills in other subjects (10 mins)

  • Ask students to think about where else they've built these same skills.
    • Which other subjects ask you to question what seems obvious and look for the assumptions hidden in it?
    • Which other subjects involve weighing competing explanations of the same evidence?
    • Which other subjects involve designing or evaluating a piece of research?
  • Go round the class, asking each student to name one skill and one other subject they've built it in.
  • Close by reminding students that choosing a good set of post-16 subjects isn't just about which ones they enjoy - it's about which ones compound the skills they want to take into work or further study.

After the lesson

  • Share the What can you do with Sociology? page with students and their parents/carers:
    • www.coffeewith.xyz/subjects/what-can-you-do-with-sociology
  • Encourage parents/carers to explore the page with their child and to discuss the contents.
  • Use the School Tools / Activities feature to record the lesson activity:
    • Activity name: Year 11 - Skills you learn from Sociology
    • Activity type: Linking curriculum learning to careers
  • Read the follow-on lesson plan: