Are you interested in Early Childhood Education and Care? This course aims to equip you with the early education and care practice skills, knowledge, and understanding necessary to achieve high performance in the global early education and care environment.

The Early Childhood Education and Care (HTQ) is designed to:
• Weave research and theory with day-to-day experience of working as an early year’s practitioner
• Improve your reflective practice and leadership skills
• Develop a culture of inclusion and excellence in early years settings.

In your first year, you will be provided with a thorough grounding in early education and care principles, knowledge and behaviours to prepare you for a range of specialist progression pathways in year two.

In your second year, you will build and develop the essential skills, knowledge and behaviours necessary to be a successful early childhood practitioner whilst working through several subject specialist modules.

This course focuses on the practical, interpersonal and thinking skills you'll need to be successful in leadership and management roles.

Placements will be mandatory in both the first year (HNC) and second year (HND) of the course.

There is a requirement of 575 cumulative hours’ work placement or experience in early education and/care settings over the two-year period of the course.

The mandatory elements of work placement/experience are as follows.

A minimum of two different settings is required.

A minimum of 75 practice hours with each of the following age ranges:
• From birth to one year, 11 months
• From two years to four years, 11 months
• Five years to seven years, 11 months.

If you undertake a work placement or experience in two settings only, at least one of these settings must enable you to meet the practice requirements for at least two of the age ranges specified above.

You can undertake placements in more than the minimum requirement of different individual settings, providing that you meet the requirement for setting hours as indicated above.

• You must complete all placement hours as specified above with positive assessments made by assessors and evidence placements within a Practical Reflective Portfolio to a satisfactory standard.
• Within the portfolio you must provide an annotated plan of care for a child that includes evidence of working in partnership with others to facilitate the child’s holistic progress and development.
• You must evidence the implementation of an evidence-based strategy that supports children’s learning and reflects inclusive practice.

The age requirements are waived for students who provide evidence of occupational competence such as holding early years educator status. These students will however need to undertake a period of observation working with an age group different from the students’ area of practice.

Support will be provided and we will ensure supervision arrangements are appropriate before you enter placements. You will be allocated a workplace supervisor in the workplace setting during each placement who will monitor and contribute to the continuous assessment of your progress; you are also required to be assessed during your practice on placement by a tutor/assessor.

Admission to this course is subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) checks. Please be aware that our DBS application process is managed on our behalf by a third party. By applying for this course, you are accepting that we will share limited personal data (name, gender, date of birth and contact e-mail address) with our DBS provider. Further information regarding DBS checks and the process for applying for a DBS certificate can be found on our DBS information page.

For the most up-to-date information about course modules, sandwich years or part-time learning, please visit our website.