Skills for Life: Healthy Relationships
Healthy relationships is a Pearson Skills for Life unit in which learners identify the characteristics of healthy relationships, including consent, boundaries and communication at Level 1 and Level 2, recognise respectful behaviours and demonstrate skills such as active listening and calm, clear communication to build positive relationships. It is one 10 hour unit that learners combine with others into a Pearson Skills for Life Award, Certificate or Diploma, from Entry 1 to Level 2. Digital demand is low: the unit has no online relationships content and Annexe C records no direct digital link. The only digital work is optional poster or infographic making, plus referencing sources and acknowledging any AI used.
- Awarding body
- Pearson
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 10
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of digital work
- Low
- Specification
- Open the specification
How this unit is assessed
- Entry Level (Entry 1, Entry 2, Entry 3): One assessment criterion at each of Entry 1, Entry 2 and Entry 3: list, outline or identify characteristics of a healthy relationship, from Entry 2 including respectful behaviours, and demonstrate a few, some or a range of skills to build positive relationships. The essential information for assessment decisions sets the number of characteristics, behaviours and skills at each level. Centres choose the type of evidence and set and mark the assessment, adapting Pearson's Authorised Assignment Brief or devising their own, internally verified and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. 10 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: One assessment criterion at each of Level 1 and Level 2: describe (Level 1) or explain with reasons (Level 2) at least four characteristics of a healthy relationship, including consent and boundaries, and at least four respectful behaviours, and demonstrate four or more skills to build positive relationships, adapted at Level 2 to at least four simulated scenarios. Centres choose the type of evidence and set and mark the assessment, internally verified and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. 10 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Evaluating and improving digital content
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Creating posters and infographics about healthy relationships
Annexe C describes the unit content as including creating posters or infographics and action plans, which learners could make with design software to show characteristics of healthy relationships and respectful behaviours. Nothing in the assessment criteria requires a digital product, and Annexe C itself records no direct digital link, so this is optional and not assessed.
DCF: Creating digital content, Evaluating and improving digital content
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils make a one page poster in Adobe Express showing three signs of a good friendship, with a heading and an image for each sign.
- Year 8
- Pupils design an infographic on respectful behaviours such as eye contact and listening, choosing icons and colours that suit a Year 7 audience.
- Year 9
- Pupils create a digital infographic explaining consent and boundaries for a school wellbeing board, then ask a teacher for feedback and improve the layout.
Show the specification wording and the DCF statements
Where it is in the specification: Annexe C, SfL 15 Unit Content and Digital Links, page 163; Unit SfL 15, Essential information for assessment decisions, page 74
“creating posters/ infographics; action plans and support network identification.”
Progression step 3
I can use a range of software to select, produce and edit a range of multimedia components for a purpose, such as:
- text and images, e.g. format text (bold, underline, italics, highlight); insert and edit text boxes; columns; use refine tools (spellchecker, find and replace); word wrap; crop; alter size and shape; alter images; add effects; trim and split sound and video clips; transitions; onion skin
- presentation, e.g. page orientation; animations; transitions; remove and alter images; use background; use action buttons to create hyperlink; embed objects.
I can ensure my output is appropriate for specific purposes.
Progression step 4
I can select and use a variety of appropriate software, tools and techniques to create, modify and combine multimedia components for a range of audiences and purposes, such as:
- text and images, e.g. explore and use effectively image manipulation techniques; explore and use appropriately the many aspects of document layout; use animation, video and audio effects such as echo, tempo, envelope, layering, frame rate, key frames
- presentation, e.g. use design tools; adapt themes and colours to suit the purpose; create master templates.
Good to know
- The unit is listed as "SfL 15 Healthy relationships" with a Unit GLH of 10 (Unit summary, page 5), half the size of the 20 hour WJEC unit of the same name. It counts towards the Pearson Skills for Life qualifications, for example C00/5444/4 "Pearson Level 1 Skills for Life Award" (Qualification titles, page 4).
- A unit counts only once: "Learners can only achieve each unit once, at a single level" (Rules of Combination, page 6, and Assessment of units, page 9), so schools should decide which level each learner is working towards.
- The required teaching content is not in the specification: it "can be found in the Teaching and Learning Support document for this unit" (Unit content, page 74), so schools need that separate Pearson document as well as the Authorised Assignment Brief.
- Demonstrated skills need a record: "achievement cannot be inferred from performance", and forms of evidence include "observation records, witness testimony, and products of learners' work" (Section 4, page 9). At Level 2 skills are shown in "at least four different simulated scenarios" (Essential information for assessment decisions, Level 2, page 74).
- Level 1 and Level 2 cover consent: learners describe characteristics "including consent and boundaries" (Essential information for assessment decisions, Level 1, page 74), and Annexe D ticks Relationships and Sexuality Education and Diversity for this unit (page 168), so schools should plan it alongside their RSE provision.
- AI must be acknowledged: "A learner will have committed malpractice if they use AI tools without acknowledging them" (Requirements relating to permitted/prohibited resources, page 76).
- The unit contains no online relationships content, and Annexe C records "No direct link" for digital, with "no explicit digital tools/tech tasks" (Annexe C, page 163), unlike the WJEC unit, which covers online harm and reporting.
- The unit says its cross-cutting theme experiences "can be found in Annexe E" (page 76), but Annexe E has no row for SfL 15: the table goes straight from SfL 5 to SfL 18 (page 172).
Links with other qualifications
Healthy relationships links most directly with WJEC GCSE Health and Social Care, and Childcare and the WJEC Foundation in Health and Social Care, and Childcare, which also cover relationships, respectful communication and wellbeing. Within the WJEC Skills Suite it sits next to Mental Health and Wellbeing, Personal Safety, Understanding Self and Others, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and Teamwork, and WJEC Online Safety would supply the online relationships content this unit leaves out. Compared with the WJEC Healthy relationships unit, which is 20 hours with four learning outcomes including inclusion, online harm such as cyberbullying and image sharing, and reporting, the Pearson unit is 10 hours with one criterion per level, puts consent and boundaries into Level 1 and Level 2, assesses skills through simulated scenarios and has no digital content.
Source: Pearson Entry Level 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life Award, Certificate and Diploma Qualifications specification, Issue 1, August 2026, Unit SfL 15: Healthy relationships.