Human development is affected by many factors which may be advantageous or detrimental.

These factors may be biological or a result of person who uses services’ experiences and/or the influences of the environment in which individuals are raised.

This is the so-called nature versus nurture debate. There are many different factors that influence our human behaviour ranging from physical to socio-economic to psychological.

Currently the Year 14 Health and Social Care students are studying psychological factors that influence human behaviour focusing specifically on the effects of anxiety.

Within this unit they must explore situations that create anxiety, the effects of anxiety and how a practitioner could minimise the effects for a service user.

To help them gain a ‘real life’ perspective they invited some students from 0874 and 0828 to come along to their Health and Social Care class to discuss their very recent feeling of anxiety caused by starting a new school.

The Year 8 students involved were a pleasure to have and provided our Year 14 students with an insightful view of anxiety.