Alternative to teaching - Childhood Studies

If you have missed out on a place for a teaching degree, there are other degrees that have an obvious relevance. One subject that is often overlooked is Childhood Studies.

This subject could lead to a later PGCE (post-graduate teaching course) or to another career beyond simply teaching. Many of these courses will still have offers available so you may still get a place for this year.

This course is also worth remembering if you don't do as well as you'd hoped in August or feel that you aren't entirely certain that you want to teach - but want to work with children in a professional job. Its also worth considering as an alternative to more general subjects like Sociology, Children's Nursing or Social Work.

Examples are :

Childhood Studies at Bristol - http://www.bristol.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/2016/childhood-studies/bsc-childhood/. This subject is also offered at Unis like Leeds, Bangor and Nottingham Trent plus several others.

Early Childhood Studies at Roehampton (London) http://www.roehampton.ac.uk/undergraduate-courses/early-childhood-studies/index.html. This deals specifically with children aged under 5 and is also offered by Plymouth, Oxford Brookes and Staffordshire plus several others.

There are also degrees called something slightly different such as BA Applied Social Science (Children and Young People) at York - https://www.york.ac.uk/spsw/undergraduate/ba-applied-social-science-children/

Lots of ideas to think about - so don't just think 'teaching' if you want to learn more about children/childhood or work in that area.

Thanks for putting up that information, sometimes you know you only want to work with children and teaching just is too hard to get into! That's what ive found anyway but i was wondering about children's nursing, can you do that with an early years degree? Did you mean nursery nurse or paediatrician?

You would have to check with a Uni offering Children's Nursing - and specifically as a postgraduate degree as you will already have a degree. Here is a 2 year course as an example : http://www.city.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/child-nursing-postgraduate-diploma

What I described in the post above is about teaching. A PGCE course is a Postgraduate Certificate of Education which allows you to teach either one of the Primary age groups or a specific subject at secondary level. Its a one year course that you do after another (non-teaching) degree.