Early Childhood (Honours) The Open University UK

Overview

Within this Early Childhood (Honours) BA degree from The Open University UK you’ll investigate early childhood from national and international perspectives with a focus on the central importance of children’s voices and the participatory nature of young children’s experiences. 

Key facts:

• Professionally and vocationally relevant across many early childhood contexts

• Takes a holistic approach to understanding early childhood from a range of perspectives

• Covers young children’s play and creativity within the context of the family and early childhood settings

• Encourages critical understanding and reflection on contemporary issues and debates in early childhood

Skills for career development

This degree is designed to contribute to the development of a highly skilled and effective workforce and to integrated coherent services for young children and their families. In addition to specialist knowledge and understanding of early childhood, it emphasizes independent thinking, develops analytical and communication skills and will help you become a clear and confident writer – all attributes that are highly valued by employers. Gaining practice experience during your studies is also likely to enhance career prospects.

You will acquire a broad set of employability skills including:

• organising and synthesising arguments associated with early childhood

• communicating and writing accurately and clearly in different genre that take account of purpose and content

• understand and engage in digital practices and share digital content in collaborative activities

• reflecting on your own learning and performance and taking steps to improve it

• recognising the importance of contributing, collaborating and taking leadership responsibility within a team.

Career opportunities:

This degree is consistent with the latest QAA subject benchmark statement for Early Childhood Studies and has been designed for existing early years practitioners (normally with a Level 3 early years qualification) or those interested in finding out more about young children’s learning and development. It is an excellent foundation for entry to a range of careers working with and for young children and their families. It is also suitable for those wanting to move into careers in teaching, health or social work.

In the meantime if you want to do some research around this qualification and where it might take you, we’ve put together a list of relevant job titles as a starting point (note that some careers may require further study, training and/or work experience beyond your degree):

• nursery worker/manager
• teacher
• family support worker
• counsellor