Skills for Life: Healthy Lifestyle
Healthy lifestyle is a Pearson Skills for Life unit in which learners look at the factors that affect mental and physical health and wellbeing, review how far they follow a healthy lifestyle, plan steps or goals to improve it and take part in activities to meet those goals. It is one 20 hour unit that learners combine with others into a Pearson Skills for Life Award, Certificate or Diploma, from Entry 1 to Level 2. Literacy carries most of the assessment: listing, describing or explaining health factors, writing a personal plan and reflecting on activities. Numeracy is light: goals need timelines and, at Level 2, must be measurable, while comparing questionnaire scores with NHS targets is only suggested.
- Awarding body
- Pearson
- Level
- Entry Level 1 to Level 2
- Guided learning hours
- 20
- First taught
- September 2027
- Amount of literacy work
- Medium
- Amount of numeracy 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 factors that affect health and wellbeing, give steps, simple goals or a basic plan to improve own lifestyle, and take part in activities to achieve them. The essential information for assessment decisions says how many factors, steps and goals learners show 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. 20 guided learning hours.
- Level 1 and Level 2: One assessment criterion at each of Level 1 and Level 2: describe (Level 1) or explain (Level 2) factors affecting health and wellbeing, review own lifestyle using different techniques, produce a clear, realistic plan (Level 1) or a detailed, measurable plan following SMART principles (Level 2), and take part in activities to achieve at least two (Level 1) or three (Level 2) planned goals, then reflect on them. Centres choose the type of evidence and set and mark the assessment, internally verified and quality assured by Pearson standards verification. 20 guided learning hours.
Skills that use Understanding, response and analysis
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Reading questionnaires and health guidance
Annexe C describes the unit content as questionnaires and diaries, interpreting health guidance, and planning and reflection, and Level 1 learners can use lifestyle questionnaires to review their practices. Reading guidance closely is needed to complete these well, but the specification does not set a reading task, so this is taught rather than assessed.
Literacy: Reading strategies, Understanding, response and analysis
Getting pupils ready
- Year 7
- Pupils scan an NHS Eatwell Guide leaflet to find the five food groups and copy one tip for each into their books.
- Year 8
- Pupils read a short lifestyle questionnaire, highlight any words they do not understand, and look them up before answering it.
- Year 9
- Pupils read NHS guidance on physical activity for young people and summarise the key recommendations in five bullet points in their own words.
Show the specification wording and the LNF statements
Where it is in the specification: Unit SfL 14, Essential information for assessment decisions, Level 1, page 70; Annexe C, SfL 14 Unit Content, page 162
“Questionnaires/diaries; interpreting health guidance; plan and reflection”
Progression step 3
I can use a range of strategies for finding information, e.g. skimming for gist, scanning for detail.
I can show understanding of and use the main ideas and significant details in different texts on the same topic.
Progression step 4
I can use a range of strategies, e.g. speed reading, close reading, annotation, prediction, to skim texts for gist, key ideas and themes, and scan for detailed information.
I can read closely, follow up and use additional material in texts to extend my understanding.
Good to know
- The unit is listed as "SfL 14 Healthy lifestyle" with a Unit GLH of 20 (Unit summary, page 5). 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.
- Evidence does not have to be written: "there are no mandatory evidence requirements and centres can select the type of evidence" (Essential information for assessment decisions, page 69), and Entry 1 learners may simply "say or indicate how the activity made them feel better" (Entry 1, page 69).
- The Level 2 plan has a set format: learners produce a plan "following SMART principles" (Essential information for assessment decisions, Level 2, page 70), so goals must be specific and measurable with timelines.
- Learners "can be assessed in Welsh or English" (Language of assessment, page 8), and the required teaching content is in the separate Teaching and Learning Support document (Unit content, page 69).
- AI must be acknowledged: "If AI is used, the final submission must be in the learner's own words and reflect their own effort" (Requirements relating to permitted/prohibited resources, page 71).
- In Annexe C the Numeracy and Literacy columns for SfL 14 appear to be swapped: the Numeracy column lists "completing questionnaires/diaries and reflective accounts" and the Literacy column lists "interpreting questionnaire scores" against NHS targets, which is numeracy (Annexe C, page 162). Annexe B ticks numeracy, literacy and digital links for the unit (page 158).
Links with other qualifications
Explaining health factors, writing SMART goals and reflecting on activities are shared with WJEC GCSE Physical Education and Health and the WJEC VCSE and Foundation in Sport and Leisure, and reading food guidance links with WJEC GCSE Food and Nutrition. Comparing scores and timelines with guideline targets touches WJEC GCSE Mathematics and Numeracy only lightly. Within the WJEC Skills Suite, Exercise for All and Food Planning and Preparation ask for similar plans and reflections. Compared with the WJEC Healthy lifestyle unit, also 20 hours, which spreads the writing across four learning outcomes and has Level 1 and Level 2 learners track a goal, the Pearson unit puts the literacy into one combined criterion per level and its numeracy into a plan with at least three goals and timelines at Level 1 and a measurable SMART plan at Level 2.
Source: Pearson Entry Level 1 to Level 2 Skills for Life Award, Certificate and Diploma Qualifications specification, Issue 1, August 2026, Unit SfL 14: Healthy lifestyle.