LEARNING SUPPORT FdA at University of Portsmouth

If you’re ready to take your teaching career to the next level, we’ve got the perfect qualification to put you on the right track.

This Foundation degree (FdA) in Learning Support is for current and aspiring teaching assistants who want to get professional recognition with a university-level qualification.

We know you’re busy in the classroom, so we’ve made it simple to complete your studies alongside your job by studying at a college near you. 

After the course, you'll be more effective in your current role. You could also go on to do a Bachelor's degree such as our BA (Hons) Education Studies or use your Foundation degree do courses that lead to Qualified Teacher Status.

Careers and opportunities

What can you do with a Learning Support FdA?

You could progress to a relevant Bachelor's degree, such as BA (Hons) Education Studies. You could also do a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, School Centred Initial Teacher Training Programme (SCITT) or the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP), all of which can lead to Qualified Teacher Status.

After you finish the course, you can get help, advice and support for up to 5 years from our Careers and Employability service as you advance in your career.

What you'll study on this FdA Learning Support course

Each module on this course is worth a certain number of credits.

If you're studying this course full time, you need to study modules worth a total of 120 credits each year. If you're studying this course part time, you need to study modules worth a total of 80 credits each year.

Core modules on the course include:

• Educational Contexts
• How Learning Develops
• Learning in Groups
• The Professional Role
• Supporting Literacy
• Supporting SEND
• Theory and Practice of Assessment
• Working in a Professional Team
• Practitioner Based Enquiry Report
• Supporting Learners with Social, Emotional & Behavioural Difficulties
• Supporting Numeracy

We use the best and most current research and professional practice alongside feedback from our students to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.

Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional modules may not run every year. If a module doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative module.