Derbyshire’s Health and Life Sciences Academy
Are you curious about how the living world works? How humans, animals and plants are made up and how they function? Do you want to solve problems, be involved in caring and help make a difference? You could enjoy studying at Derbyshire’s Health and Life Sciences Academy at UTC Derby.
The Derbyshire Health & Life Sciences Academy will provide you with the knowledge and skills to work across numerous areas of health and social care as well as the bioscience sector which develops biological solutions to help improve life for humans, animals and the environment.
Our tutors have a mixture of experience in areas including nursing, apprenticeship recruitment for the NHS and voluntary health roles, alongside teaching. They also have an interest in finding and supporting alternative routes into healthcare careers.
As a specialist science and technology centre, we help students to develop the kind of technical and scientific skills which the healthcare sector increasingly needs alongside personal skills such as caring, communication and teamwork. We are proud of the close links we have with the University of Derby, the NHS and Joined Up Care Derbyshire, which lets us prepare our students for employment and university study.
Our Health Suite enables students to take part in simulation activities and for students to work and practice on medical grade equipment that they would come across in many health sector roles. Students learn about life saving intervention, initial patient care and bedside manner. The Health Suite allows for students to roleplay scenarios in a care setting.
Curriculum
At KS4, alongside their GCSEs and Level 2 OCR Cambridge Nationals in Health and Social Care, our students gain an additional vocational qualification in either Infection Control or Sexual Relationship Education. We are also working towards including a First Aid qualification to compliment the First Aid module taught in Year 9.
At KS5, Year 12 students study Level 3 BTEC in Applied Science and a Level 3 BTEC in Health & Social Care alongside their A Level choices.
Jobs in the Health and Life Sciences sectors include:
- Bioinformatician
- Nurse
- Speech Therapist
- Social Worker
- Clinical Researcher
- Paramedic
- Physiotherapist
- Biotechnologist
- Midwife
- Psychologist
- Dietician
Employer Links and Projects
The Derbyshire Health & Life Sciences Academy at the UTC has been developed with the NHS, Joined Up Care Derbyshire and the University of Derby and will be supported by a wide range of professionals working in the field as the specialism develops.
We work on exciting projects alongside our employer partners. Currently our Health and Life Sciences students are working virtually with the University of Derby student volunteers who act as patients or care users for students to roleplay and develop their communication practices.
We are working with University of Derby to ensure in the future every student is linked to a student mentor at the university who is studying a related course.
Derby and the surrounding area is part of the third largest centre of expertise for medical technologies in the UK. Together with Nottingham, the area is home to over 200 medical technology firms including some of the largest Health & Life Sciences businesses such as Walgreens Boots Alliance and Pennine Healthcare.
You could be part of this growing sector!
As well as these large businesses, the area also features two of the biggest business support centres for bioscience businesses, MediCity Nottingham and BioCity Nottingham. BioCity Nottingham site was expanded in 2017 with the opening of the £30million BioCity Discovery building. It is estimated this new building will create up to 700 Life Sciences jobs over the next 30 years.