Early Years Care and Education

This course is aimed at producing graduates who are capable of working in a range of early years’ contexts, working with children up to the age of eight in both care and education settings. During the course, students will acquire their new knowledge and develop new skills; for example, how babies and young children learn and develop through play, current and emerging theories and research which underpin practice in the early years, observation and assessment of babies and young children’s learning and development, plan and evaluate curriculum in the early years’ environment, and the different roles f practitioners within each curriculum approach, the value and ways of working with parents, and of inter-professional collaboration. The programme combines theory with hands-on experience and practical skills. Students experience the variety of the early years’ sector through placements in different childcare settings, thus providing the opportunity to link classroom learning with work based practice. Student placements are supervised by an experienced early years’ practitioner in conjunction with support from the lecturing staff at AIT.