EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE at Canterbury Christ Church University

The early-years workforce needs highly qualified and motivated graduates. Through this course you can build on a relevant foundation degree whilst in employment to gain full honours.

Under the guidance of expert tutors, you will gain skills and knowledge that will transform your practice, gaining an in-depth understanding of different social and cultural perspectives of children’s development and learning, their families, and their wider communities.

You will also be able to share knowledge and experiences by joining the Early Childhood Society and the Holistic Early Learning and Development Research Group, and have the opportunity to listen to expert guest speakers at South East England Early Childhood Research and Practice Association events.

You will explore areas including:

• leadership and management in early years
• social pedagogy of childhood
• advocacy and social action with children
• multiple and often competing perspectives on childhood and children's lives.

Why Early Childhood Education and Care?

The BA (Hons) Early Childhood Education and Care typically follows on from the Foundation Degree in Early Childhood Education and Care or another Foundation Degree with an ‘early years’ focus. The course aims to further advance your skills, knowledge and understanding to lead and transform your own practice and that of others.

Clair Stevens (Senior Lecturer) also manages a Forest School and Nursery. They won Nursery of the Year 2014 in The Nursery World awards.

The Early Years workforce requires highly qualified and motivated graduates with knowledge and understanding of the multi-disciplinary nature of working with young children and their families, as well as an appreciation of the importance of quality partnerships with parents and other agencies. This degree makes a significant contribution to meeting the demands of the sector and it will provide you with a broad in-depth, theoretical underpinning of these issues as well as providing an opportunity to relate learning to practice.

What will i study?

Whilst studying for the degree you will engage with theory and research drawn from an interdisciplinary approach. Specifically, you may draw on the fields of education, health and welfare, sociology, psychology, geography, history, children’s rights, law and justice, political and economic science, anthropology, social policy and philosophy. The course is embedded in a socio-cultural perspective of children, families and their wider communities and in particular the interrelatedness of children’s development and learning as culturally, as much as biologically, determined.

What can i do next?

On completion of this course, you could further your career through professional postgraduate study for example; Teaching, Early Years, Social Work, Speech and Language Therapy.Previous students have gone into the above professions as well as Early Intervention Services and local authority work.