Overview
Learn the skills and get the workplace experience to support children and young people with equality at the heart of your practice on this Childhood and Youth studies degree.
You'll discover how factors such as the education system, youth culture and social media affect children's development. You’ll also have the chance to explore optional topics such as outdoor education, safeguarding and the role of play in a child’s development, and to focus your studies on a particular specialism - education and teaching, community and youth/family provision, or leadership and enterprise.
Develop the knowledge and skills to support children with special educational needs (SEN) and those from a care background, making sure no child misses out on the educational and development opportunities available to them.
After the course, you’ll be set for a career supporting children and their families in areas such as youth work, social care and education.
Course Highlights
- Get at least 60 hours of experience working with children in your second year
- Have the opportunity to do an additional work placement year after your second or third year on this Connected Degree - we're the only UK university to offer flexible sandwich placements for undergraduates
- Learn from lecturers with diverse professional backgrounds – from youth work and policing to teaching and SEN
- Gain current insights from your lecturers’ research on themes such as child bereavement and the role of digital tools in supporting learning and wellbeing
- Study the latest techniques in education, including outdoor learning and Forest School
- Develop relationships with potential employers through events and workshops with organisations such as an immersive theatre company and a charity that helps children develop life skills through sport
- Build a professional eportfolio featuring examples of your work – essential for standing out in the job market after the course
- Get ready for a career in social work with our optional Social Pedagogy pathway – you’ll spend more time on placement and graduate as a ‘Social Pedagogy Practitioner’, endorsed by the Social Pedagogy Professional Association (SPPA)
- Take advantage of our Institution-Wide Language Programme and learn a foreign language for free as part of your degree, choosing from Arabic, British Sign Language, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin or Spanish
Careers and opportunities
There will always be a demand for skilled and knowledgeable professionals to work with children and young people.
As well as specialist expertise, this course helps you develop transferable skills valued by all kinds of employers, such as:
- teamworking
- leadership
- people management
- contextual communication
- self-organisation
- time management
- resilience
After the course, you could work in areas such as:
- youth work
- social care
- educational welfare
- probation
- teaching (with further study)
- policing
Roles our graduates have taken on include:
- nursery manager
- family support worker
- training assessor
- employability coordinator
- careers advisor
- teacher
- schools liaison officer
