BA (Hons) Early Years Childhood Studies

University of Bolton

Bachelor's degree

In Bolton

£ 9,250 VAT inc.

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Description

  • Type

    Bachelor's degree

  • Location

    Bolton

  • Duration

    3 Years

At the University of Bolton, we believe that making the link between your course content and real life situations is crucial to your understanding of early childhood studies. Our BA (Hons) Early Years and Childhood Studies degree is a great qualification if you are looking for a career working with pre-primary school children and need to develop the necessary work experience, or if you are already working in the early years’ sector and would like the chance to obtain a formal qualification to support your career development.

Using their wealth of experience from a wide range of settings, our highly-qualified professional tutors will guide you through the theories and research that underpin early years practice and legislation. The work-based element of the course will then help bring your learning to life and give you experience using your new knowledge and skills in the workplace.

In some modules, you may be taught alongside professionals who work in related services and professions. Such connections help promote the multi-agency team approach that is such an important part of the early years childhood agenda. Overall, our supportive team will guide and encourage you, helping you to develop into a confident, capable early years professional.

Facilities

Location

Start date

Bolton (Greater Manchester)
See map
Deane Road, BL3 5AB

Start date

On request

About this course

This course will help you gain knowledge and understanding of a range of issues relating to childhood, children, young people and society. It provides a solid foundation from which you can progress onto professional training such as teaching, nursing and social work. As a graduate you’ll develop a range of key transferable skills such as communication, time management, team work, critical analysis, negotiation, problem solving, and dealing with challenging situations.

What Can I Do With This Qualification?
Early years and childhood studies graduates enter a wide range of job sectors with an equally wide range of employers, including local authorities, local and national charities, state and independent schools, nurseries and health authorities. Some of the more obvious job roles include teacher and teaching assistant, nursery practitioner and manager, learning mentor, special educational needs teacher, out-of-school worker, family support worker, social worker and youth worker.

Childhood studies graduates that go on to further study tend to take courses that lead to professional status such as teaching and social work. The most popular options are the postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) and early years teacher (EYT), so many graduates go on to work as primary or secondary school, early years or special needs teachers.

Alternative Career Options
Play therapy
Counselling
Child psychotherapy
School liaison
Sports and outdoor education
Student welfare
Nursing
Educational psychology
Speech and language therapy
Community development
Consultancy and research
Media and journalism
Information and legal services
Libraries
Museum and gallery education

Any subjects are acceptable at Level 3. You should also have five GCSEs at grade C or above or grade 4 to 9 (or equivalent) including English.

You’ll be required to attend an interview as part of the application process. You’ll also be required to secure a work placement before the end of semester 1.

This course involves working with children and you must gain an Enhanced Disclosure certificate from the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) before starting your studies.

Combining theory with practical skills, the course is designed to prepare you for a career in early years, or give you a formal qualification with a possible option of progression into primary school education.
Strong partnership links with local employers in the sector mean there are opportunities for you to undertake work placements, providing meaningful experience to put on your CV.
Guest lectures from practitioners in the sector provide additional knowledge and alternative viewpoints. Specialist tutors in Health and Community Studies also provide another dimension to your learning. This ensures the course offers a true multi-agency approach.
In the final year, you’ll have the chance to undertake a small-scale research project focusing on an area of early years and childhood that is particularly interesting to you.
You’ll have opportunities to learn through role play, which is a great way to develop and practice your skills and understanding.

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Subjects

  • IT
  • Early Years
  • IT Development
  • Skills and Training
  • Approach
  • Full Time
  • Teaching
  • University
  • Team Training
  • Compulsory

Course programme

Modules

Modules listed below are a mixture of compulsory and optional. You may not have the opportunity to study all the modules as part of the course.
  • Professional and Personal Development
  • Introduction to Child Development
  • Social Policy for Early Years
  • Learning in the Digital Age
  • Facilitating Children’s Learning
  • Work Experience
  • Developing Self Reflective Practice
  • Child Development - 2
  • Safeguarding Children
  • Inclusive Practice
  • Developing Practitioner Skills
  • Children in the Community
  • Theories and Approaches to Learning in the Early Years
  • Developing Children’s Health and Wellbeing
  • Leadership and Management in the Early Years
  • Research Methods
  • Dissertation
Teaching, Learning And Assessment

Our strategy is student-centred and we use a blended approach to teaching and learning – you will have face-to-face sessions, sometimes one-to-one, and take part in online learning.

You can expect a mix of seminars, lectures and tutorials, practical demonstrations, critiques, self-directed study, IT and library sessions and guided study. Group-based activities, such as role-playing exercises, workshops, presentations and discussions of case studies and scenarios from practice also make up some of the teaching time, and there will be practical skills sessions.

Guest lectures and presentations by a variety of visiting speakers from relevant employment areas offer you the chance to further develop your knowledge and understanding.

The University’s e-learning portal Moodle supports your online learning. You can also use Moodle to communicate with fellow students studying the same modules as you.

The assessment strategy is set up to help you organise and develop your learning, and to evaluate your achievement of the learning outcomes. You can expect time constrained exams and coursework, such as essays, reports, presentations, portfolios, and others.

Disclaimer

The university will use all reasonable endeavours to deliver your course as described in its published material and the programme specification for the academic year in which you begin your course. Please be aware that our courses are subject to review on an ongoing basis. The content of course modules and mode of associated assessments may be updated on an annual basis. This is to ensure that all modules are up to date and responsive to employment and sector needs. The published course material and the programme specification contain indicative ‘optional modules’ that may be subject to change due to circumstances outside of our control. For this reason we cannot guarantee to run any specific optional module.

Additional information

International Fees - £12,450

See related categories

BA (Hons) Early Years Childhood Studies

£ 9,250 VAT inc.

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