Are you an ambitious graduate seeking to take your professional understanding of the early years sector to a higher level? Our Masters in Early Childhood Studies offers you the opportunity to develop greater professional insight and expertise, along with essential career enhancing knowledge of leadership, management and research.

Course Details

The University of Bolton’s MA in Early Childhood Studies is designed to prepare future leaders for the early years sector. The social, cultural and political climate has an enormous impact on the lives of young children, influencing their development and affecting their life chances. This postgraduate course is designed to develop your awareness and understanding of these factors while cultivating your leadership, critical analysis and communication skills. We focus on supporting you to integrate these ideas with your knowledge of childhood development, helping you to achieve career success and champion the uniqueness of every child.

The aim of this course is to extend your already considerable professional skills and knowledge with specialist modules that deepen your understanding of areas such as equality and diversity, early years curriculum development and childhood in a global context. Our expert team will help you gain critical reflection, analysis and evaluation skills that support your ability to determine the impact of professional interventions on the development of children and across the early years sector.

Combining this knowledge with the principles and techniques of academic research and investigation will help develop your evidence-based practice, and grow your skills in evaluating options and formulating creative solutions to complex problems. Studying leadership and management styles, theories and frameworks will support you to become more actively involved in the planning, delivery and transformation of early years and children’s services.

Overall, our aim is to help you gain the professional and transferable skills to move forward in your career, improving the services you provide to the children in your care and their families.

Career Opportunities

The MA Early Childhood Studies offers you the opportunity to study and engage critically with research into the systems and social structures that support children and their families. This programme is also a good option is you’re a practitioner wishing to develop more critical and theoretical insights into early childhood practices.

On this programme, you’ll have the chance to develop your critical reflection skills, independent learning and your ability to evaluate your current professional practice.

What Can I Do With This Qualification?

As a graduate of this MA programme, you’ll be well qualified for progression to a managerial or senior leadership role in the sector. It’s designed to support you to pursue a career working in early years or with children and young people, such as youth justice, child and family intervention and support, policy development and education, youth work or child psychology.

On completion of your MA, you could undertake further study by pursuing a research degree (MPhil, EdD or PhD).