100% Online MA Early Childhood Education

Gain an understanding of children’s learning and development in early childhood (0-8 years old) by placing principal theories, concepts and practices in early childhood development into dialogue with research that challenges those concepts, pushing the boundaries of the field and engaging in reflexive analysis of your professional knowledge and practice. Overall, the module highlights the need to understand the political, social, historical and geographical contexts that shape our understanding of early childhood development and the diverse caregiving practices that support young children’s health, well-being, development and learning.

Explore young children’s rights by critically reflecting on the research, policy, and practice of children’s rights in different contexts and paradigms. You will gain an understanding of the history and development of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and early childhood, and how this is shaped by the political, social, cultural, and geographical contexts. Overall, you will become equipped with the knowledge to recognise, advocate, and plan for the realisation of young children’s rights.

Examine a variety of dimensions of young children’s learning environments, while considering physical, emotional, historical, and sociocultural aspects. You will critically examine the notion of 'quality' within these spaces across different contexts. Highlighting children's active roles, the module underscores a rights-respecting approach to designing learning spaces. You will be encouraged to reflect on your impact and positionality in fostering holistic and responsive environments. You will integrate theories and approaches to design inclusive, child-centred learning spaces to enhance your understanding of quality and responsiveness in early childhood education.

The aim of the module is to provide you with a range of specialised skills and knowledge in the use of digital technologies. This module will provide a critical appreciation of how to use digital tools within educational contexts.

This module provides a broad introduction to education from a range of different theoretical, political and historical perspectives enabling you to critically analyse contemporary educational issues in your home countries and internationally. 

This module aims to introduce you to the notion of the ‘reflective practitioner’ and teachers as ‘agents of change’. Brookfield’s lenses of reflective practice are revisited as a model for developing a critically reflective questioning stance towards practice. Important issues of teacher professionalism, professional values and identity are explored through political, policy and theoretical perspectives giving you an understanding of what it means to be an ‘activist teacher’ in the 21st century. You will learn about the role of reflective practice within the wider professional development agenda, including the need for CPD over the career span and for professional learning leading to achievement of the Standard for Full Registration.

This module will introduce and explore the complex relationship between the ideals of inclusive education and the realities of educational practice. Activities will be designed to include consideration of implications for a range of stakeholders and education policy, in addition to theory and practice.

This module focuses on strategic thinking and planning to meet the challenges of the 21st century in our global world. Disruption continues to challenge even the most robust educational systems around the world and therefore school leaders will need to be prepared to face these challenges effectively. During tumultuous times we need to move beyond crisis management and engage in strategic leadership to meet the needs of learners and communities during emergencies. Therefore, you will be introduced to strategic leadership thinking and planning for times of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. You will gain a deep understanding of the role strategic leadership plays in sustaining effective teaching and learning that enhances outcomes for all learners even during the most disruptive times, but also how strategic leadership can move us beyond reactionary crisis management and develop resilient systems.

This module will provide opportunities for you to critically reflect upon the research methods used in education, as well as the duties of the researcher in terms of ethical practice, research integrity, and communication of findings.

This module will explore ethics for the social sciences and working with human participants across a variety of culturally informed social settings. You will understand the importance of ethical principles in order to protect the dignity, rights and welfare of research participants throughout the planning, organising, managing and disseminating research.

This project enables you to build upon your programme modules to develop and apply the skills of research and independent inquiry to a self-selected project which contributes insights and advances understanding to a subject, field or profession. You will be required to design and undertake a small-scale independent research project, relevant to your field of study and/or professional practice, reflecting on the application of the insights you generate. You will be required to exhibit a professional approach, academic rigour, independence, critical thought and self-direction with the input of a supervisor.