Studying our Education BA (Hons) course will equip you with a solid foundation in the combined fields of education and special education needs. If you are passionate about working with children, young people and families, our unit in the Narratives of Childhood will be useful in developing your understanding of theories on childhood, youth and education. In areas of teaching, our unit in The Lifelong Curriculum will not only teach you to design curriculum, but how to implement it based on historical and current educational policy. You will keep this knowledge in mind during our Developing Teaching Practice unit, where you will learn to deliver effective classroom sessions based on current research in the field. This ties closely into our Comparative Education unit, where you will adopt a diverse approach to analysing the issues and problems affecting international education. Similarly, our Deschooling unit will allow you to discuss the notions of ‘schooling’ and ‘deschooling’ to critically analyse accepted norms in education and pedagogy. In more recent areas of study, you will learn about the increasing presence of technology in children and young people’s lives in our Working with Children and Young People in the Digital Age unit. You will consider the challenges and opportunities that new technology provides to young people and children as well as its potential implications on their welfare, education and social experiences.

Focused on home environments, our Families and Communities unit will allow you to consider the social, economic and cultural factors that shape family experience in a contemporary British society. Similarly, our Contemporary Debates in Education, Childhood and Youth unit will give you the opportunity to debate and investigate the role of the media and political institutions to understand how policies in education are formed. Similarly, you will analyse social policy and inclusion in the context of UK contemporary welfare reform in our unit in The Inclusive Society. In areas of the mind, you will be introduced to Early Child Psychology that discusses developmental psychology while examining the changes in development during early childhood, how this impacts learning and how to utilise this within educational settings. Moving up an age group, you will consider the same aspects in our Psychology of Adolescence unit. Similarly, you will focus on how behaviour is understood within educational contexts in our Perspectives on Pedagogy and Behaviour. This unit particularly focuses on children and young people with impairments as well as prioritising their inclusion. Moreover, with more young people experiencing mental health issues, our unit in Children and Young People’s Wellbeing will teach you to support children through understanding social and emotional issues in education. Similarly, our unit in Representations of Disability will allow you to criticise disability representation in the media and how these influences perceptions of disability.

Furthermore, you will analyse current Policy and Practice in Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) to determine if this supports or hinders the needs of individuals with SEND. At the same time, you will look at these issues in a national and global context in our Critical Debates in SEND Education unit. In other areas of study, you will discover why and how Safeguarding and Child Protection has changed in recent years while also completing relevant safeguarding training. Aside from this, you will also be introduced to a range of philosophical concepts and methods in education in our Introduction to Educational Philosophy unit and you can explore the relationship between the two in our Reading Philosophy and Education unit. You will also engage in critical language study in our Discourse and Ideology unit, where you will be introduced to a variety of approaches to conversation analysis. Another key skill as an educational professional is writing, and this is where our Creative Writing unit will introduce you to short stories and poetry that you will share in small group workshops. Similarly, our Children’s and Young Adult Fiction unit will familiarise you with a range of fictional genres written for children, including film adaptations, fairy tales, and other popular fiction. Some of these works include those of Enid Blyton, Rohl Dahl and Disney which will allow you to write and phase test on fiction for children.

Throughout the course, you will also be introduced to aspects of sociology in our Individuals in Society (Education) and our Contemporary Society in a Global World (Education) units. You will relate your values and beliefs to sociological theory and apply this to education. Finally, you will complete a Dissertation on a topic of interest to you under the guidance of a supervisor. To enable your research skills, our unit in Examining Research will allow you to think about how education and sport is developed through research, while our Studying for Higher Education unit will introduce you to academic study in higher education settings. Similarly, our unit in Investigating the Social World will equip you with an understanding of quantitative and qualitative research methods, data collection, analysis and reporting. Furthermore, our Key Concepts in Education unit will also give you the skills to produce academic work to a higher education standard through debates and written exercises.