The Early Years 3-7 programme prepares you for very early teaching and learning experiences. You’ll spend time helping children learn through play activities – which is more challenging than it sounds! You’ll also be a key figure in nurturing children’s social, emotional and physical development, as well as teaching those first skills needed to support the rest of their school years and beyond.

The Later Years 5-11 programme prepares you to build on the early childhood experiences that children bring with them to their first years of more formal schooling. You’ll build on best practice of learning through play to engage children with the Key Stage 1 curriculum and beyond. Working in Key Stage 2, you’ll see children develop, ready for the challenges of secondary education.  

You’ll develop knowledge and understanding of the statutory frameworks that teachers work within as well as best practice in meeting your legal and ethical obligations in key areas such as safeguarding and child protection.

Our focus is on developing your ability to teach a broad and balanced curriculum and gain an understanding of subject and age-specific pedagogy to enable you to plan, teach and assess across the curriculum confidently.

An important aspect of training to teach is developing your understanding of why we work in certain ways. Understanding the theory behind what works helps you to reflect professionally on your teaching and sets you up to be confident in your own practice and decision-making.

You’ll spend substantial time working alongside practitioners in Early Years and Primary settings. To help you develop the confidence you’ll need to become a teacher, you’ll complete at least 24 weeks of school-based training as part of your degree. We’ll support you to build your skills gradually, so you’ll be ready to take on the role of class teacher by the time you undertake your final placement.

Our dedicated School Partnerships team will work with you to find the right opportunity for your school-based training. You’ll be allocated a university link tutor and a school-based mentor for each placement who will support you throughout your training.

Before you complete each block of school-based training, you’ll take part in intensive and immersive preparation training led by your Primary Education lecturers.