Studying our BA (Hons) Early Childhood Education (Graduate Practitioner) course will equip you with specialist knowledge and skills around early years education. It offers you a full and relevant practising qualification recognised by the Department for Education. You will undertake 80 days of assessed placement within the 0 to seven age group and collect a range of evidence for a professional portfolio as well exploring your understanding of a range of childhood theories and approaches in taught sessions and assessments. As an aspiring early years practitioner, it is essential that you have in-depth knowledge of Early Child Development, therefore this unit aims to provide you with a wide range of research and theory in the field. You will be introduced to current legislation and guidance around Early Years Curriculum Studies to examine how academic research and child development theories are used to develop policy. To broaden your views on educational practice, these units later link to our International Perspectives on Early Childhood Education unit where you will examine international and renowned approaches used to support early years learning.  

The unit Narratives of Childhood will be useful in developing your understanding of theories on childhood, youth and education. This knowledge will allow you to raise critical questions about children’s care policies, welfare and education over time. In more specific areas of study, our Early Representations of Numeracy and Literacy unit will allow you to explore how young children develop their literacy and numeracy skills at an early age and can be supported by practitioners and the environment in appropriate ways. In practical areas of study, you will learn to support and promote early education and development in our Developing Practice in Early Childhood Settings unit. You will keep this knowledge in mind during the Developing Teaching Practice unit. Moreover, our unit in Reflecting on Quality in Early Childhood Settings will enhance your understanding of how reflective thinking can enable the most effective provision for young children’s thinking and help practitioners to tune into children and help those children make sense of their world. To diversify your skill set further, our unit in Professionalism, Leadership and Management in the Early Years will equip you with the organisational, legal and interpersonal skills you need to lead a team and ensure that your work with diverse groups of people is of a high quality to help you to support both team and children’s needs effectively.. 

As an early years professional, a deep knowledge of children with differing needs is a crucial factor in ensuring equality of opportunities for them to be included and to flourish. This is where our units in Inclusive Education in the Early Years and Inclusive Practice in Early Childhood Settings will enable you to examine approaches to ensure an understanding and equitable approach to curriculum opportunities. More generally, The Lifelong Curriculum unit aims to develop your understanding of key considerations in curriculum design, and you will learn not only to design curriculum, but how to implement it based on educational policy. With more young people experiencing mental health issues, our unit in Children and Young People’s Wellbeing will teach you to support children through understanding social and emotional issues in education. Similarly, our unit in Representations of Disability will allow you to criticise disability representation in the media and how this influences perceptions of disability. In other areas of study, you might select to study an Introduction to Educational Philosophy where you will consider a range of philosophical concepts and methods that can be applied to educational contexts.  

We support you from the beginning to the end of your academic and research journey. Our Key Concepts in Education unit gives you the skills to produce academic work to a higher education standard through debates and written exercises. To introduce you to research skills, our unit Investigating the Social World will equip you with an understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods, data collection, analysis and reporting.  Finally, you will plan and execute an independent research project in our Dissertation unit where you will choose a relevant topic of interest to you and work under the guidance of a supervisor. This is a celebration of all the skills you have learned and offers you an opportunity to specialise in studying an area that interests you.