Early Childhood Studies - BA (Hons)

This first module will explore the potential career pathways for your programme and the necessary skills, values and attributes to be a successful professional within a range of children services. Using this as the context, you will reflect on and identify your existing skills and identify the skills necessary to be a successful student of Higher Education as part of your journey through to professional employment.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module encourages you to become confident and reflective practitioners and to recognise the significance of how children develop as a vital part of understanding early childhood. This module will also support you to develop your understanding of domains of development, by this we means children’s physical, cognitive, personal and social development. You will also explore what different theorists have contributed to our understanding of how babies and young children develop. This module links with ‘Observing and Assessing Babies and Young Children’ that you will study later in the year.

This is a core module that all student on the programme will study, we think this is important as it is about what we understand by the concept child and childhood. We have to understand this in terms of our own understanding and society’s understanding if we are to make sense of what it means to study Early Childhood as an academic subject.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module encourages you to become confident and reflective practitioners and to recognise the value of observation and assessment in the context of childhood. This module will also support you to develop your understanding of how observation can be used to document the child’s learning journey and support planning for future development.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module encourages you to become confident and reflective practitioners and to recognise the value of working with families and children within an early years context. It is intended that this module will also support you to develop their intellectual capabilities by encouraging you to engage in identifying, reviewing and discussing contemporary issues and debates in working with children and families, policy and practice.

In line with the aims and philosophy of the programme, this module helps you to develop knowledge and understanding of the impact of enabling environments on children’s learning and well-being making use of relevant policy, theoretical perspectives and research findings. You will find close links with several modules throughout the course but particularly the Level 5 module, ‘Reflecting on Play, Learning and Pedagogy’ and the Level 4 module, ‘Child Development.’ It also forms a thread with optional modules at level 5 and 6, ‘Exploration, Creativity and the Child’ and ‘International Curricula.’

This module explores the terms Diversity and Inclusion. It will examine our human rights and investigate whether these are universal. It will look at the rights movements in Britain and America and look at how these movements have influenced early childhood thinking. Definitions of social justice will be offered along with various views of how social justice could be achieved. An examination of the term ‘Diversity’ will be offered along with suggestions of what a diverse society may look like.

This module builds on the skills and knowledge introduced at Level 4, making connections with child development, assessment and observation to develop your understanding of the central importance of play in young children’s development and learning. The module is designed to support and extend your professional reflection so that you are able to articulate you own philosophy of learning in early childhood and promote the inclusion of play provision in all settings.

This module will explore safeguarding and child protection including the necessary skills, values and attributes to be a successful professional working with a range of children’s services. You will build on your previous learning by focusing on the roles and responsibilities of professionals in a safeguarding context. This will include key legislation, policy and evaluate processes that exist to support children who have or are likely to suffer significant harm. You will consider discrimination, which affects individual children, young people and families.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this Level 5 module encourages and supports you to become a confident and reflective researcher and to recognise the value of conducting research within relevant children’s services. You will be given the opportunity to explore and experience what it feels like to work within small research cluster groups. During this process, the module will support you to engage in a critical analysis of contemporary issues and debates in research, policy and practice related to your field of study. You will work collaboratively to identify and then design a small scale study to explore one of these issues.

This Level 5 module will support you to become knowledgeable and reflective practitioners on issues around children’s health at both national and international level. It includes principles and practices of effective health promotion for children 0-7 years of age in line with national and international research and development on the factors that contribute to the health and well- being of children. The Healthy Child will be explored within a holistic framework to include the impact of families, immunisation, attachment, poverty and growth and nutrition. You will learn how to recognise and understand the contributing factors to healthy child development. You will learn the importance of resilience in the development of good mental health.

This optional module will explore children’s voice and rights and the necessary skills, values and attributes to be a successful professional with a range of children’s services. Using this as the context you will reflect on and identify aspects of children’s rights and the value of their voice, as an individual and within an early years setting.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module encourages you to become confident and reflective practitioners and to recognise the issues affecting the development of looked after children and the ways in which barriers to inclusion might be removed or minimised for this vulnerable group and outcomes improved. This module will also support you to make links with other modules (Child Development and Safeguarding and Child Protection), and to consider strategies that will support the child and the family, and the corporate parent.

This optional module encourages you to examine you own personal perspectives regarding the definition of creativity and the role of the professional in fostering curiosity, imagination and creative experiences for the young child. Creativity is ‘the word of the moment’ in education and it is considered to be at the heart of educated people’s lives. There are significant differences between creativity and creative development and the module aims to explore these as well as provide students with opportunities for theoretical and practical knowledge and skills. You will explore aspects of creativity with reference to Early Years settings. You will experience activities relevant to each aspect of the QCA definition of creativity and will explore the possibilities of how ideas can be used in developing both your own and children’s creativity in the Early Years environment. You will reflect upon creative activities explored with young children.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this Level 6 module enables and supports you, as a member of the early childhood research community, to conduct a piece of small scale individual research that attends and adheres to key ethical principles. This module encourages you to engage in independent as well as collaborative critical analysis of contemporary issues and debates in early childhood research, policy and practice. You will be provided with an opportunity to clarify your understanding of key research terms, as well as to consider the link between epistemology, methodology and methods and the impact that your own personal philosophies have upon the design of your study.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module encourages you to become confident in your leadership and management knowledge, which allows you to review, consolidate, extend and apply this knowledge within the Early Years’ context, at a graduate level. It is intended that this module will support you to develop your intellectual capabilities by encouraging you to engage in identifying, reviewing and discussing leadership and management issues. This module is designed to provide you with an understanding of key leadership and management strategies within early year’s settings and teams. The module is also designed to support you to consider the connections between services, teams and service users. You will also explore the different ways in which leadership and management impacts on quality and outcomes.

In line with the philosophy and aims of the programme, this module will respond to contemporary perspectives and issues affecting children, young people, families and communities. A strong commitment to inclusive values will be reinforced and will empower you to address issues of equality, disadvantage, diversity and social justice to optimise the life chances of children, young people and their families. In line with the learning, teaching and assessment strategy, the module will be interactive, engaging and challenging; designed to promote your independence and confidence to enable you to be an advocate for children, young people and families and an agent for change. The module is highly responsive to changes and developments, and will provide you with an in depth understanding of how issues may impact your work in your chosen field.

This Level 6 module will further explore the potential career pathways and enable you to manage the next steps in your career. As you prepare to finish your programme it will enable you to practice and develop key skills necessary as you seek employment or post graduate study.

You will have the opportunity to identify, reflect on and develop a range of effective professional skills, practicing them through work based real life projects such as applying for jobs, interviewing, recruitment and selection processes. Using services for children and families as the context you will meet with a range of key stakeholders including recruitment companies, careers services, post graduate programme leaders and leaders and managers in services that work with and for children and their families.

You will examine the background to current provision for early childhood education and care across the UK and internationally in order to provide a context for early years’ education. You will explore the historical context of a range of early years’ educational approaches. Emphasis will be placed on the holistic nature of early learning based on the promotion of children's first-hand experience and the provision of a rich environment. You will examine international perspectives alongside different curricula approaches and comparisons made between alternative approaches to learning. Similarities and differences will be analysed through key issues including the learning environment, ‘sustained shared thinking’, and creativity and inclusion.

This Level 6 module will encourage you to look beyond the familiar constructs of ‘childhood’ that you may have already encountered and instead it will support you to confidently examine the past and present contexts, challenges and possibilities of global and future childhoods. In doing so, you will consider a number of exciting and thought-provoking debates, including the moral debate surrounding child labour and child soldiers, future reproductive technologies and the ethical implications of ‘designing’ children, as well as the use of social media in childhood. This module will also enable you to develop a sense of your own personal philosophy in relation to these topics as well as to consider and debate the ethical implications of global issues surrounding childhood across the world.

This module will engage you in an exploration of issues of access for children and families in diverse social and educational contexts from both the UK and international perspectives. It explores the development of approaches and pedagogies for inclusive learning environments, which take account of diversity. It supports you in engaging with differing perspectives on equality, participation and inclusion, and in developing your own perspectives. You will address the dimensions of social exclusion, SEN, disability, disaffection, behaviour and learning difficulty in the context of wider diversity across a breadth of childhood and youth themes.