BA (Hons) Early Years Childhood Studies (Top-up) Part-time

Bachelor's degree

In Bolton

Price on request

Description

  • Type

    Bachelor's degree

  • Location

    Bolton

  • Duration

    18 Months

If you’re an early years practitioner who has successfully completed a Foundation Degree in Early Years and Childhood Studies and you want to top-up to achieve an Honours-level qualification, this course could be just what you’re looking for. We’ll support you to enhance your existing knowledge, ready to achieve the status of BA (Hons) Early Years and Childhood Studies (Top-up) graduate.

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. 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. 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.

We’ll support you as you explore areas such as children’s health and wellbeing, and management and leadership in early years, and focus on enhancing your research skills and understanding. We aim to help you gain critical, analytical and lifelong learning skills that will support your career development far into the future.

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 possess 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.

Graduates of this course will be able to apply for postgraduate courses in teacher education and other related fields, as well as employment opportunities in the field of education, such as family support workers, teaching assistants and learning mentors Whilst the course does not lead directly to Qualified Teacher Status, it does allow access to career pathways that require a full honours degree.

You’ll have successfully completed a relevant qualification at Level HE5, such as a Foundation Degree (FdA) or Higher National Diploma (HND) in Early Years and Childhood Studies, or a professional qualification at an equivalent level.

You’ll be required to attend an interview and/or provide a portfolio of work.

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.

This course is designed to open up higher-level career opportunities in the early years sector, or give you an honours-level qualification that will support your application if you wish to train as a primary school teacher.
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.
You’ll have the chance to undertake a 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
  • Part Time
  • Leadership
  • Teaching
  • University
  • 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.
  • 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’ll 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.

BA (Hons) Early Years Childhood Studies (Top-up) Part-time

Price on request