PRIMARY EDUCATION STUDIES WITH FOUNDATION YEAR

Education is a process, a subject and an academic discipline. This module aims to develop your awareness of all three and is designed to help you transition from previous experience and learning to undergraduate study. It provides you with essential skills to support you throughout your degree, including academic writing, presenting and collaborative working, as well as exploring all the elements that make education studies unique.

Children are born ready to learn, however it is the quality of a child's experiences in the first few years of life that can have a lasting impact on their ability to be mentally and physically healthy. The basic architecture of the brain is constructed through an ongoing process that begins before birth and continues into adulthood. This module will therefore invite you to explore the factors, both internal to the child and environmental influences, that may contribute to supporting healthy brain and physical development. It acknowledges that the developing brain is open to influential experiences, both positive and negative, and will examine key issues, theories and debates related to the developing learner.

This module explores education in the UK, from early examples of formal schooling to the present day, to provide a context for historical and contemporary ideologies. It encourages you to take an analytical approach and enables you to challenge and critique educational policy, values and related provision. You will explore key themes such as societal impact, equality, special educational needs, the role of the state, social justice and economic influences while developing your ability to access, organise and evaluate information to develop coherent academic discussion.

This work experience module is designed to help you identify the ways teaching and learning can be organised in a range of settings. It will offer you the chance to select contrasting opportunities to enable you to evaluate how environment impacts on the educational experience of all involved. WBL – Work Based Learning

This module invites you to explore how policy influences pedagogy and the differences between a curriculum and a framework for learning. You will learn about the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) and the National Curriculum for England in order to begin to identify your own views on appropriate pedagogies for the primary age phase depending on subject and context. You will develop your planning skills and ability to reflect on practice as a developing professional.

In this module, you will develop your understanding of the importance of reflection to inform professional practice in a primary education context. You will explore contemporary theories of reflection, examining how these can be applied in order to provide insight for teaching and learning. You will be encouraged to explore personal beliefs and the potential impact of these on your own professional practice, and on the practice of others, in order to equip you with reflection as a professional competence. Reflection fosters resilience by increasing self-awareness, improving problem-solving skills, and enhancing emotional regulation. Through reflection, individuals can re-frame challenges and build confidence in their ability to handle future difficulties, making it a key skill in your journey as an educator. You will work collaboratively, through discussion and applied tasks, to evaluate research related to reflective practice, in order to develop your understanding of how teaching and learning can be effectively tailored to meet learner requirements.

This module focuses on the purpose and impact of primary education on wider society. It examines underlying educational ideologies and agendas, as well as the organisation and delivery of primary education, in both historical and modern-day contexts. Exploration of theories associated with the sociology of education will support you to consider if and how the primary education system, and its associated practices, have challenged or created inequalities in society. You will also have opportunities to critically evaluate alternative educational approaches.

Learning is a complex and ongoing process based on how we make sense of our world using new information and experiences. This module builds on The Developing Learner 1 and explores the relationship between cognition, language and behaviour. You will examine key issues, theories and debates in relation to how children's patterns of thinking, language and behaviour are constantly changing in response to the interactions they have with others and their environment. You will be invited to consider the complexities associated with both the internal and external factors that may influence children's cognitive function, their language acquisition and behaviours.

This module will help you identify what professional behaviours are expected in education settings. You will explore the frameworks used by teachers and childcare workers in the UK to judge professional standards and competences, and then use these during work-based placements to identify the attributes associated with educational provision. WBL – Work Based Learning

The role of the educator has an important ethical dimension that should not be overlooked. Educators must uphold certain ethical standards within their practice to ensure that they act as a 'good' role model to their students and that they provide them with a 'good' education. But what constitutes a good role model or a good education? The moral education of children only becomes more ethically complex as the student population in the UK becomes increasingly more diverse, resulting in a more diverse set of identities and potentially conflicting values being encountered within the classroom. The modern digital world we live in adds further complexity to both the lives of children and those who must educate them to be able to manage this complexity successfully. Contemporary educators have to negotiate this ethical landscape and encounter challenging ethical dilemmas in carrying out their role. They must think and act with special care when making ethical judgements that concern the needs and interests of their pupils. In this module, you will explore some of the interesting and important ethical issues raised here and reflect on your own values and philosophical positions in consideration of how these influence educators' practice. Philosophy provides frameworks for understanding, interpreting, and responding to adversity, all of which are essential for developing resilience. Through this module you will develop insight into how to view challenges as opportunities for growth and develop insight in to managing difficult experiences that are frequently presented in practice situations.

Education is a global concern. This module aims to develop your awareness and understanding of key educational issues and debates from contemporary Britain and around the world. It will encourage you to select data sources, analyse current research and argue a personal position in relation to a self-selected topic, chosen from those studied during the module.

This module explores how social and cultural experiences have implications for diverse learners’ education in mainstream and SEN settings. You will explore issues of equality and difference in relation to primary education both in the UK and globally, looking at relevant legislation and practice in order to justify your own position based on principles of equality of access, provision and outcomes.

Educational research helps us to understand the process of learning and teaching. In this module you will be introduced to the guidelines, skills and competences needed to explore a self-selected topic relevant to primary education. You will be supported by a dissertation tutor to plan and carry out a research project, including the development of an ethical approach, data collection methods and analytical skills.