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UCAS code:
X120
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Institution code:
S82
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Location:
Ipswich
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Duration:
Full-time: Three years |
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Typical Offer:
2023-24 and 2024-25 entry; 120 UCAS tariff points (or above), BBB (A-Level), DDM (BTEC), Merit (T Level). |
This accelerated programme offers students a rich and varied programme of study combining extensive school experience and professional learning with a multi-disciplinary academic study of childhood.
Upon successful completion of the programme students will have obtained Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) which will allow them to take up a qualified teacher position in a primary school.
The course is delivered in partnership with local Initial Teacher Training (ITT) providers and combines a full time academic programme with a placement in a school setting.
This programme is unique in the region as it allows students to gain the professional status of Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in combination with a BA Honours degree.
Over 160 days in practice allows in-depth experience over a range of schools and year groups.
This course includes a wide range of continuous professional development training, like paediatric first aid training, children’s safety online and Youth Mental Health First Aid training.
If you don’t meet the above entry requirements, we may still be able to consider you. If you’re interested in applying, call our Clearing Hotline to discuss your suitability for study.
Introduction
Childhood: Primary Education with QTS is a new and exciting opportunity for students wishing to become primary school teachers. This programme is delivered in partnership with our Initial Teacher Trainer (ITT) partners. The programme enables students to gain a BA Honours degree in Childhood while working towards Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in Primary Education.
The BA Childhood enables you to explore the diverse, multi-faceted experiences of children through a range of perspectives such as sociology, education, psychology, social policy and health, while also acquiring an in-depth understanding across several education subject disciplines and clearly defined core curriculum specialisms.
In year one, your academic study is situated entirely within the BA Childhood programme, delivered by University of Suffolk. Additionally, from the very start of the course you will also be in a placement at one of our ITT partner primary schools for one day a week allowing you to apply your academic knowledge to practice on a continuous basis. There will also be an extended placement block where you will be able to start developing your skills as a teacher.
As you progress into Year 2 and 3, your academic study is split equally between the Childhood programme at UOS and your ITT provider. You will still have weekly school placements and longer block placements. Over the course of your training, you will have placements in 3 different schools offering you a range and depth of experience. Throughout your placements you will receive high quality support and mentoring from your school mentor and your expert ITT tutor.
On this course, you will engage with children, understand their rights, listen to their experiences, and prioritise these without imagining to be fully cognisant of the child’s world. You will be equipped to do this through a range of modules, which build on a diversity of social sciences without privileging one perspective over another. Through this array of lenses, you will interrogate contemporary issues and debates within childhood and education from local, national and international contexts.
An in-depth understanding of diversity and difference in children and childhoods will enabling you to develop, adopt and champion inclusive and participatory attitudes and practice throughout your studies and into your future career. We want to equip you with the skills to become change agents in your future organisations and communities.
The academic team draws on years of academic and professional expertise in teacher training, childhood, child health, development and therapeutic working. You will benefit from close working relationships with a highly motivated teaching team who will support you in your journey to becoming a primary education teacher.
This academically challenging route is designed especially for high performing, motivated students as it combines a full-time academic programme with school placements throughout each year of the course. Entry into the programme is competitive and subject to a selection process.
Course modules
Full-time students typically take five to six modules per year (a total of 120 credits).
The first year provides a multi-disciplinary overview of childhood, education, child development, health, and welfare. All academic modules are situated within the BA Childhood programme, delivered by University of Suffolk. From Year 2 onwards, students will take 60 credits within the Childhood programme. The remaining 60 credits (professional, subject-specific modules) are delivered by the ITT providers.
Throughout all three years of the programme, practice provision is organised by the ITT partners. Practice will be a combination of yearlong placements in combination with more intense practice blocks (respectively 4, 8 and 10 week blocks in year 1, 2 and 3). The practice blocks will typically be organised outside the academic teaching calendar in spring and summer. Practice progress is captured within the mandatory, non-credit bearing modules (Professional Practice). Students are allocated a different school each year to ensure a range of settings and teaching contexts.
This module seeks to introduce students to academic study at university level. Its purpose is to enable students to reflect on and develop their skills as they progress through their first year of study. This is achieved by introducing students to the key study and academic skills required to succeed at university level study such as accessing, and evaluating academic source material, understanding argumentation and critical thinking, academic writing, and referencing. Students will also reflect on elements of academic resilience and employability.
This module introduces students to a range of subject areas and key debates surrounding the health/illness and wellbeing of children in the contemporary UK. The module presents students with several perspectives through which to view these ideas: biological, medical, social and environmental. The implications of poor health and illness on the child and the family help contextualise the dynamic roles of children in maintaining their own health.
This module investigates the developing child and the changes that occur over time within the context of the family and wider social systems that children inhabit. The module has a particular focus on the aspects of child development that influence and are influenced by social context. It will include the psychological development of babies, children and young people within the family, education and the wider social systems; it seeks to explain how the interaction between biological, social and cultural factors affect lifelong patterns of change in the individual.
This module is an opportunity to introduce students to education and the underpinning values of professional practice with a particular focus on the historical, international and contemporary conceptualisations, policies and practices of care and education. Students will be encouraged to consider how the theoretical study of the child underpins the early years and primary curriculum and adult role.
Within this module, students will be challenged to ask critical questions about their social world and explore their own individual and cultural experiences within a wider context. Throughout this module, students are encouraged to examine the common assumptions of childhood as a natural, universal, fixed, and inevitable life stage. By ‘thinking sociologically’, students will identify the social structures which define, govern, and locate children and childhood.
The module will address diversity, rights and inclusion in the broadest sense, addressing two core areas: childhood and barriers to participation/inclusion. Students will be encouraged to consider the intersectionalities of children and young people’s lives. Topics range from gender, poverty, ethnicity, disability, and socio-cultural diversity to identify and explore the differing perspectives and discourses.
This module will consist of an initial school experience and teaching practice. The extended placement provides opportunities for students to observe children and begin to understand the classroom environment. In the 4- week block placement, students will have the opportunity to teach some whole class lessons, with the support of the class teacher.
This module will introduce students to a ‘systems’ thinking as applied to childhood and the development of the children. It will use an ecological model of human development to place children and childhoods into the wider and complex ‘system of systems’, micro, meso, exo and macro, and the dynamic of constancy and change of these systems in time. It will focus on topics such as the family system, family-school-community collaboration; school involvement, and will then engage in broader discussions on globalisation, legislation, educational systems, et caetera. The systems approach underlying the ecological model of human development is a theoretical framework that allows, and encourages, integration of other theoretical views into a multi-theoretical approach.
The module provides students with an historical policy context in which to understand the origins of safeguarding children and the social construction of abuse. The shifting power relations between the state, professionals, families and children is a core theme that is critically explored through an examination of the legal framework, particularly the Children Act (1989) and Children Act (2004) and also Child Abuse Inquiry reports.
Reflecting contemporary safeguarding policy, the module explores the related themes of early intervention, prevention, and child protection as every professions responsibility. At the core of safeguarding children is developing a theoretical understanding of why children are abused, the ability to identify signs and symptoms, and understand the impact of abuse and neglect on children’s wellbeing.
This module grounds students in the principles of social science research and methods employed to develop our understanding of the social world. The module covers core aspects of the research process and offers students opportunities to focus on particular methods of interest to them and relevant to their field of study. The module aims to provide students with the knowledge and confidence to undertake independent, ethical and robust research in the social sciences. This module also acts as a precursor to the dissertation module.
This module is concerned with the management and practice of learning and teaching within schools. The unit introduces the trainees to key areas of practice including: behaviour management, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, professional behaviours and meeting the needs of all learners (including SEND/EAL/HLP). Through this module, trainees will develop a strong understanding of a wide range of professional responsibilities within the whole school and classroom environments.
This module enables trainees to gain a secure knowledge of the pupils’ National Curriculum in English (including early reading and phonics), mathematics and science. In addition, Early Years trainees will be expected to gain a secure knowledge in teaching within the EYFS. Primary trainees will be expected to have a basic knowledge of the EYFS. The central purpose will be to examine strategies for the effective learning, teaching and assessment of each subject as well as to gain the necessary subject knowledge for teaching.
This module enables trainees to gain a secure knowledge of the pupils’ National Curriculum in computing, PE, DT, RS and PSHE. In addition, Early Years trainees will be expected to gain a secure knowledge in teaching within the EYFS. Primary trainees will be expected to have a basic knowledge of the EYFS. The central purpose will be to examine strategies for the effective learning, teaching and assessment of each subject as well as to gain the necessary subject knowledge for teaching.
This module will consist of the first assessed teaching practice. The extended placement provides opportunities for students to plan, teach and assess for a class of primary age children across the full primary curriculum.
Students will be provided with a coherent range of experiences and learning opportunities which, when taken together, build upon their skills and knowledge, laying the foundations for further development. Trainees will have all the necessary learning opportunities and support to enable them to demonstrate that they are meeting the Teacher’s Standards.
This module is designed for students to produce a final year projects that allows students to exercise their independent judgement and skills in the development and execution of a project or dissertation relevant to their field of study. Under the supervision of an assigned tutor, the module provides students with the opportunity to independently apply the core subject knowledge and skills developed over the course of their degree.
Drawing from postcolonial, subaltern, decolonial, post-qualitative and posthuman critiques, the module aims to explore the Southern “turn” to domains of knowledge - hierarchies, ‘production’, erasures and circulation - resulting in the deligitimisation of knowledges from the ‘rich peripheral countries’ to build an understanding of the impact of knowledge as capital. Engaging with this upsurge of interest in decolonisation within professional and academic environments will not only extend the University’s currency but importantly enrich students’ understanding of the current demand to decolonise educational and practice settings, and why acknowledging other knowledges and decolonisation matters, towards enabling a critical approach to future thinking and practice. In doing so, the module will interrogate what place curriculum and policies have within these calls for decolonising education and practice in the UK.
This module is concerned with the management and practice of learning and teaching within schools. It is designed to promote a critical awareness of the nature of learning in schools. The unit builds on the Year 2 module and develops the trainees understanding and practice in key areas including; behaviour management, pedagogy, curriculum, assessment, professional behaviours and meeting the needs of all learners (including SEND/EAL/HLP).
This module builds on the Year 2 module ‘Core Subjects 1’ and enables trainees to gain a secure knowledge of the pupils’ National Curriculum in English (including early reading and phonics), mathematics and science. In addition, Early Years trainees will be expected to gain a secure knowledge in teaching within the EYFS. Primary trainees will be expected to have a basic knowledge of the EYFS. The central purpose will be to examine strategies for the effective learning, teaching and assessment of each subject as well as to gain the necessary subject knowledge for teaching.
This module builds on the Year 2 module ‘Foundation Subjects 1’ and enables trainees to gain a secure knowledge of the pupils’ National Curriculum in history, geography, art, music, and languages. Early Years trainees will be expected to gain a secure knowledge in teaching within the EYFS. Primary trainees will be expected to have a basic knowledge of the EYFS. The central purpose will be to examine strategies for the effective learning, teaching and assessment of each subject as well as to gain the necessary subject knowledge for teaching.
This module will consist of a final assessed teaching practice. The extended placement provides opportunities for students to plan, teach and assess for a class of primary age children across the full primary curriculum. This placement will take place in the ‘opposite’ key stage to the block placement in Year 2 to enable students to demonstrate that they can plan, teach, and assess across the primary age range.
Students will be provided with a coherent range of experiences and learning opportunities which, when taken together, build upon their skills and knowledge, laying the foundations for further development. Trainees will have all of the necessary learning opportunities and support to enable them to demonstrate that they are meeting the Teachers’ Standards.
Career opportunities
Employability has always been central to the Childhood programme here at the University of Suffolk. We encourage all students to undertake work/practice experience in whatever form is most accessible and appropriate for the individual student. The Childhood programme enables students to go into a range of careers working with children and their families as well as completing post graduate qualifications in order to work in the education, health and social care fields.
Careers including Primary Teacher Training, Family Support and Social Work, Nursing and related disciplines, Early Year’s settings, International, National and Regional Aid work with children and their families, post-graduate study and research.
Fees and finance
2023-24
- UK full-time tuition fee: £9,250 p.a
- UK part-time tuition fee: £1,454 per 20 credits (please contact the Student Centre for further information)
- International full-time tuition fee: £13,992 p.a
Further Information
At University of Suffolk, your tuition fees provide access to all the usual teaching and learning facilities that you would expect. However, there may be additional costs associated with you course that you will need to budget for.
Entry requirements
2023-24 and 2024-25 entry; 120 UCAS tariff points (or above), BBB (A-Level), DDM (BTEC), Merit (T Level), Access to HE Diploma, minimum of 45 Level 3 credits at Merit grade or above.
Applicants are also required to have GCSE English, and Maths and Science grade 4/C or above, or accepted equivalents are: equivalency tests from restricted set of providers (contact for further information) or overseas qualifications verified by UK NARIC. Key and functional skills at level 2 are not equivalent.
No deferred entry possible.
Before starting the course, students will also need to meet the following ITT Criteria set out by the DfE
- Interview with written assessment, maths test and short presentation.
- 2nd reference needed
- An enhanced DBS check
- A Children’s Barred List check
- A Prohibition Order check
- Occupational Health check to ensure applicants are ‘Fit to Teach’
IELTS 7.0 overall (minimum 6.5 in all components) where English is not the students' first language.
Staff
Facilities and Resources
Most of our teaching takes place at our Waterfront Building situated on Ipswich marina. The Waterfront Building has modern seminar rooms, lecture rooms and an auditorium. It’s also home to several flexible open-study spaces available for students to use as well as picturesque views across the waterfront. The Atrium Building is another location for our teaching and again contains modern seminar rooms with AV equipment and a café on the ground floor.
