Education Studies

On our Education Studies degree you’ll combine practical work experience with academic study to develop the skills needed for teaching and beyond.

The Education Studies course is ideal if you want to work with people in any professional context that involves learning.

You’ll study modules on key topics including child development, policy and practice, safeguarding and child protection; studying the changes that children undergo and investigating how issues such as poverty, nutrition, stimulation and opportunity affect development.

Following your degree, you could progress into a career in learning support, educational administration or management, community learning or safeguarding, or train to be a teacher with further study. Your workplace could be an educational setting, children’s centre, charity, care and family support organisation or other learning environment.

With work placements across a variety of age groups and learning environments, the degree gives you the opportunity to explore alternative career options.

As this course is designed using our brand-new pathways structure, you'll have the opportunity to tailor your course towards Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND) during the second year. 

Work placements

Our courses have been designed to provide a range of learning experiences.

These include lectures, individual tutorials, group tutorials, seminars, workshops, problem-based learning, practical work placements, sector visits, fieldtrips and independent study.

Year one will provide the foundation of your studies and you will learn the study skills which will take you through the course. In addition, you will learn about the history of education right through to modern day policy. You will also study child development where you will find out about how children learn. Finally, you will learn how to keep children safe in education through learning about safeguarding procedures and legislation.

Year two builds on the first year and you will learn about equality and inclusion as well as examining contemporary issues in education with an eye on current policy. Standard route students will build on child development by examining the adolescent and adult learner whilst students on the SEND route will learn more about children with complex needs.

Year three provides opportunity to compare our education system with other countries as well as providing the opportunity to research an educational area of your choice.

During the course you will benefit from a number of extended work placements. Initially, these will let you explore how you see yourself and your role within a professional working environment. Later placements will focus on how you work individually and in teams, and how you contribute to the aims, ethos and culture of the workplace.

This degree is also available to study over two years. In the two-year accelerated route you'll complete an extra semester over the summer months.

The course operates on a modular basis that provides flexibility and choice. Typically the majority of modules are 30 academic credits with a smaller number of 15 credit modules. Each credit taken equates to a total study time of around 10 hours. Total study time includes scheduled teaching, independent study and assessment activity. Full-time students take modules worth 60 credits per semester. All students take a total of 120 credits per level and 360 credits for the degree as a whole. Your overall grade for the course and your degree classification are based on the marks obtained for modules taken at levels 5 and 6.  The full-time course has one start point in September.